


In Which Lance Isn't As Human As He Thinks

by GemmaRose



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: (considering the SDCC trailer i think that tag is a safe assumption), Altean Music, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bilingual Character(s), Bilingual Lance, Burns, Counting Kills, Crying, Electrocution, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Galra Lance (Voltron), Hugs, Kissing, Loose Teeth, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Misunderstandings, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Other Character Tags to be Added - Freeform, Purring, Scratching, Space Battles, Tasers, Threats, coming home, don't worry most of them are robots, food goo, most of them - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-26
Updated: 2016-10-18
Packaged: 2018-07-26 20:35:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 22,290
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7589152
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GemmaRose/pseuds/GemmaRose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Blue gets zapped with Galra magic on the way out out of the wormhole, Lance discovers something about his heritage.</p><p>Crossposted from the <a href="https://voltron-kink.dreamwidth.org/1161.html?thread=39049#cmt39049">Voltron kink meme</a>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Saj_te_Gyuhyall](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Saj_te_Gyuhyall/gifts).



No. No no no no no. Lance clutched at his wrist, eyes fixed on his palm. It looked for all the world like someone had dumped purple dye in his hand and let it stain, and he was absurdly reminded of the time he gave Ama a sharpie makeover. Her lips had been purple for hours, and as punishment his had been made green. But this wasn't a sharpie stain, unless somehow his hand had been stained through his flight suit. It wasn't the right colour either, not for marker ink and not for a bruise. More than anything else, it looked like galra skin. It looked like galra skin, and it was _spreading_.

Lance shut his eyes, curled his hand into a fist, and pulled it close to his chest. Blue would be back online soon, and then she could help him figure out what was going on. He just had to keep calm until then and try not to use up all his air before the recyclers kicked back in. What was it his instructors at the Garrison had said about deep-space survival? Don’t talk or move around more than necessary because both of those waste oxygen, keep your breaths slow and even to make your air last. He could do that, but just thinking about the purple spot on his hand made his heart speed up. That was bad, he had to be calm.

“Think, Lance.” he muttered under his breath. There had to be some way to calm down. His eyes flew open, and he felt a grin spread across his face. Home. He’d just think about home until Blue woke up, and then everything would turn out okay. It’d be better if he could ramble about them to someone else, but until Blue was running again he couldn’t even be sure if he was within comms range of anyone else.

Lance shut his eyes again, took a slow breath, and thought about home. he’d been too young to remember Salome’s adoption, but he was five years old when Mami brought Valero home. He’d been so delighted to finally have a brother, it hadn’t even fazed him that the newest member of their family could only toddle around with help. Lance grinned, remembering the day he’d been reading a book of Arthurian legends out loud to help teach his youngest sibling English and Valero had pointed at the Lady of the Lake to ask her name.

That same night, “Valero” had stood behind “his” chair at the dinner table and asked them to call her Viviane. Thinking about Viv, though, dragged Lance’s mind towards Pidge. How had he not noticed? Months of being in the same squad at the Garrison, weeks of sharing the castle, _forming Voltron_ , and he still hadn’t seen it. Maybe it was because Viviane was still so young? Little kids tended to be of more or less indeterminate gender if you ignored their hair and clothes, but they were all old enough for the Garrison and by that age girls tended to be, well, noticeable. And Pidge, the fucking crazy tech wizard, had been actively pretending to be a boy. Lance frowned, and made a mental note to ask Pidge about pronouns once they were all back together.

Lance shook his head, and focused on his family again. Little Salome, who made him braid xir hair down xir back when it got too long for xir to do on xir own. Amalia, who was only a few months older than him and had taught him to climb trees. Fernanda, who had a knack for dating girls who could and would kick his ass either at video games or in real life, though once or twice she’d found a girl who could actually do both. Isidora, who had used him as her test subject for makeup until she went off to college to do it professionally.

A smile spread across his face when he remembered Mamá’s reaction to the news of her engagement, but it faltered after only a second. He’d been given permission to go home for her wedding, but it had already passed. Jenaro’s wife had probably had her baby too, and Salome’s birthday was coming up no doubt. Xe would be turning fifteen, and he wouldn’t even be able to video call to ask how xir quinceañera went. Lance pressed his head back against the headrest of his pilot seat, and tried to will away both the weight in his gut and the itching on his left hand. The still-gloved one. _Shit_.

He sat bolt upright, and yanked his glove off as fast as he could. Sure enough, the back of his left hand was turning purple. His breathing sped up, and he clutched his head. There had to be a reasonable explanation for this, he just had to think about it. When the wormhole went cuckoo and launched them all over the place, Blue had gotten zapped with that freaky purple lightning before they landed wherever the hell they were. That was why she was down right now, she’d shorted out when there were purple sparks flying everywhere. Lance shivered, and shook his hand at the memory of how the electricity had seemed to burrow through his flight suit instead of dissipating over the surface.

Wait, the electricity. Purple sparks, purple skin. It was probably, like, a rash or something from exposure to new alien bullshit. The shaving cream he’d found in the castle gave him hives, so this was probably something similar. Just normal a human reaction to weird alien zappy-magic.

Blue purred, and Lance exhaled heavily as he heard the oxygen recyclers turn back on. “Good to have you back, girl.” he muttered, patting the dashboard. “Now let’s see if we can reach anyone else.” he reached for the keys that controlled communications, and turned on his radio. Static, and nothing but. “Hello?” he lifted his right hand and rested his palm against the side of his helmet. “Anyone reading me?”

More static.

“Great.” he sighed, leaning back in his chair. “Looks like it’s just me an’ you, Blue.” his eyes roamed the starry expanse in front of them, not a familiar constellation in sight. First things first, he needed to be able to get out and check his lion for damage. Nothing was compromised badly enough to make red lights show up, but that didn’t mean her armour was ready for another fight, or even sitting properly for her self-repair systems to work properly. “Any safe planets nearby?” he asked, resting his hands on the controls. Blue rumbled in the back of his mind, and he twisted her around to face a world which looked remarkably yellow where it wasn’t scorched black. “Maybe I’ll get lucky and Hunk’s already down there.” he muttered, tilting the joysticks forward and flying Blue in closer.

To absolutely nobody’s surprise, Hunk was not already on the planet. Blue settled down at the top of a hill covered in golden grass that came up to Lance’s waist, and a quick survey of the area turned up flowing water at the foot of the hill and a forest a little ways downriver. A decent spot to make camp, even if he was pretty sure Blue’s emergency rations didn’t include the makings of s’mores. Her armour, as it turned out, had been almost entirely charred away where the purple lightning crawled over her metal skin. Lance knew that the lions could all replenish and repair themselves with solar energy, but how long it would take to heal these battle scars was another question entirely.


	2. Chapter 2

Lance woke up with a groan, and stretched lazily. His neck hurt a little, which wasn’t unexpected since he spent the night in his seat again, but it was still annoying. He stood up, and lifted a hand to rub at his neck. The purple blotches had appeared all over him in his second day on this planet, but aside from some itching as they spread there didn’t seem to be any negative effects. His palm met hair, and Lance tensed. That, wasn’t right. Was he dreaming? No, his dreams were way cooler than just waking up in Blue and being fuzzy. But that left the inevitable question, _why_ did the back of his neck feel like the back of the cat they’d had when he was a kid?

Lance lowered his hand to squint at it, and was abruptly slammed into full wakefulness. His nails were way longer than they’d been yesterday, the new growth decidedly purple and much thicker than his existing nails. And on top of that, the backs of his hands had sprouted a coat of fine purple hairs which thickened near the wrist and were thick as fur on his arms. “What the fuck?” he yelped, turning his hands to look at the palms and backs and palms again.

“-nce?”

Lance jolted at the sound, and after one long disoriented moment he scrambled for his helmet. It squished his ears a bit as he jammed it on, but the static was being cut with a familiar voice. Just fragments, but after half a week of dead static that was almost enough to draw a giddy laugh out of his chest.

“Keith!” he grinned, cheeks hurting from the force of it. “Keith, can you hear me?”

“Just -s an- -ces.” Keith replied, and Lance didn’t have to be a genius to know what that meant. “-ep -ut.”

“Hey, Blue, any way we can boost the signal?” Lance asked, flopping into his seat sideways and making it spin. He was pretty sure it wasn’t a spinny chair when they found Blue in the desert, but now it was, because he and his lion had _bonded_.

“Holy shit.”

Keith’s voice was much clearer, and Lance couldn’t help the laugh that burst out of him. Even having the red paladin for company would be better than being alone. “Never thought I’d say this, but man is it great to hear your voice.”

“Same.” Keith replied, and Lance could hear his sorta-rival smiling. “Where are you? Red’s pinged three habitable planets in this system, but her scanner’s been knocked down to a few hundred mile radius.”

“The yellowy one.” Lance leaned back over the armrest and put a hand on the side of his helmet. “That’s got, like, a bunch of black spots.”

“Okay, second from the sun.”

“Call back when you hit atmo, ‘kay?” Lance sat up, and started towards the little cupboard of a bathroom. “I need to like, shower and brush my teeth and shit.”

“Will do.”

The line went dead, and Lance pulled off his helmet with a smile. That smile promptly vanished when he caught sight of his reflection in the bathroom’s tiny mirror. His entire face had gone purple, and the whites of his eyes were going yellow. “What the fuck?” he breathed, pulling his cheek down and tilting his head back to get a better look. The white bit of his eye was definitely turning yellow, and the veins he could see were a purpley colour. Whatever this was, he really hoped some time in one of the castle’s healing pods could fix it. The galra resemblance would put a major cramp in his style when he was trying to pick up cuties on planets they just saved _from_ the galra.

“Lance?”

Lance startled, and grabbed up his helmet. How long had he been staring at his reflection? He jammed the helmet on his head, and slumped against the wall. “Right here.”

“According to Red, we should be able to find you in the next few minutes.”

“Cool.” Lance nodded, picking up one of the weird little toothpaste pill things and popping it in his mouth. “I’ll wait outside.” he closed the link, and grimaced at the artificial not-quite-mint flavour that filled his mouth. He looked down at his hands and arms, then back up at the mirror. Maybe if this stuff was only under his collar, he’d put his flight suit back on and test the waters first. But with his whole face already turned purple and his eyes going yellow there was no way he could hide this without wearing his helmet fully shut and raising questions.

Lance stepped out of Blue’s mouth, and climbed up her still badly gouged flank to lie on his back more or less along her spine. The red lion cruised down through one of the planet’s thin clouds a minute later, and something heavy curled in Lance’s gut. Keith’s hatred of the galra was second only to Shiro’s. What if he attacked on sight? What if whatever was happening to him couldn’t be reversed and Keith never trusted him again? They were rivals, yeah, but team mates too. If they didn't trust each other, it would be harder to form Voltron. Maybe impossible.

Red’s mouth opened, and Keith stepped out with his helmet under one arm. “You don’t even have a shield up?” he asked skeptically, and Lance couldn’t help sitting up to glare at his fellow paladin.

“I had to let your dumb ass land, didn’t I?” he snapped back, choosing not to mention that he hadn’t put Blue’s shields up in the first place because this planet was just so dang peaceful.

“I’ve got it.” Keith said dismissively, turning and walking back into his lion. Lance sat up fully, and winced at the sight of his fingernails. He needed to find something to trim them with before they straight up broke. A shield of red hexagons lifted around both their lions, and Lance exhaled heavily. All he could do was hope that Keith didn’t try to run him through with his bayard. It wasn’t like he could just ignore his team mate the way he’d ignored assholes at his various schools.

“What, you stuck up there?” Keith teased, and Lance gritted his teeth against the fear churning in his stomach. But he couldn’t let Keith see that, not if he wanted to keep what remained of his dignity.

“No.” Lance snapped, crossing his arms. “I just-” the words caught in his throat, and he shuddered a bit. “I didn’t want to freak you out.”

“What?” Keith was frowning now.

“Just, promise you won’t stab me or anything.” Lance said, scooting towards Blue’s nearest leg.

“Sure.”

Lance could practically feel the temperature drop as he climbed down, and hesitated for a second before facing his teammate.

“What the fuck?” there was the sound of Keith’s bayard taking form, and Lance forced a casual smile as he turned around.

“Hey, I thought you said you weren’t gonna get stabby.” he chuckled, hooking his thumbs in his pockets.

“I don’t make promises with galra.” the red paladin hissed, and Lance reflexively exaggerated his flinch.

“Ouch.” he pouted, lifting a hand to place over his racing heart. “That hurts.” Lance pasted on an easy smile, and hoped that Keith could just drop it.

“What have you done with the Blue Paladin?” Keith snarled, lips pulling back to reveal his teeth in the most threatening expression Lance had ever seen on another human’s face. The fact that Keith’s bayard was now at his throat didn’t hurt the threat-meter, either.

“Dude, chill.” Lance managed a chuckle. “It’s just me.”

“ **What happened to Lance**?” Keith’s voice dipped into a growl that made Lance’s purple arm hair stand on end. He swallowed heavily, deliberately not looking at Keith’s bayard as he tried to keep his breaths even. His chest was feeling tight, and if he cried in front of Keith he would _never_ live it down. “ **Tell me**!” Keith roared.

“I don’t know.” his breath hitched, and he wanted to curse but unless he kept talking Keith was going to take his fucking head off. “I don’t know what’s happening to me. There was this purple lightning, and then my skin started changing colour and I-” he choked on a sob, and only barely managed to swallow it down.

“I got zapped with that too, and _I’m_ still human.” Keith snapped, tilting his bayard’s blade so Lance was forced to either lift his chin or be cut. He could feel tears wetting his cheeks, but thankfully managed to swallow the whimpery sob that tried to claw its way out of his throat.

“Keith, _please_.” Lance lifted his hands, giving up on trying to keep his breathing even. “It’s me. Your rival.” he tried to smile, but it felt more like a grimace. “Did you forget me again already?”

Keith lowered his bayard, eyes widening. “Holy shit.” he breathed, taking a step back and letting his sword swing down to rest on the ground. “What happened to you?”

“I don’t know.” Lance gasped, legs finally giving out under him. His back slid against Blue’s leg, and he sat down heavily next to her paw. “I don’t _know_.” his shoulders shook, and he curled his hands in his shirt. “It’s just- it’s happening and I can’t stop it and-” a sob broke his sentence in the middle, and he raised a hand to scrub at his eyes. “ _Mierda_.” he sniffled, chest heaving with only-mostly-silent sobs. “Everything’s fucked up.”

Keith knelt in front of him, bayard finally deactivated, and Lance stiffened for a moment as he was pulled into a hug. It was probably the worst hug he’d ever gotten, Keith was tense and awkward and the armour on his flight suit dug into Lance’s shoulder. After a moment, though, Lance lifted his arms and grabbed Keith, pulling him close. After spending the past few days decidedly _not_ freaking out, it was almost a relief to have someone hug him and assure him it would be okay. Sure, Keith wasn’t actually saying anything but the occasional hesitant ‘there, there?’ but it was the thought that counted.

Keith’s hold had become more natural by the time his tears ran dry, but even as his breathing began to even out Lance didn’t put away. “I’m scared.” he mumbled into Keith’s chestplate. The Red Paladin just rubbed a small circle between his shoulder blades. “What if my family doesn’t recognize me when we get home?” his voice came out very small, and if he hadn’t been so fucking wrung out Lance would’ve been at least a little bit mortified that he was confessing these things to his sorta-rival.

“I mean, I know Shiro won’t want to look me in the eye now. Pidge probably won’t either, or Allura or Coran, but I can- I can deal with that, y’know?” he was rambling now, words pouring out without filter, but he couldn’t bring himself to care what Keith thought of him for this. “I just-” he drew a deep, shuddery breath, and ducked his head until his chin pressed against his collarbone. “What if they kick me out? I mean, I’m _galra_ now, you said so yourself. I’m the enemy we’re fighting, I can’t be trusted. But I can’t-”

“We would never.” Keith said quietly, his voice steady and sure. His arms dropped, and Lance sat up to see his team mate wearing an expression he could only describe as intense. Keith’s hands came to rest on his elbows, and Lance became abruptly aware of just how much he was still leaning on the Red Paladin.

“Would never what?” he asked, skin prickling.

“Replace you.” Keith said earnestly. “The only reason Team Voltron would ever get a new Blue Paladin is if you had the gall to go off and die without the rest of us.”

Lance couldn’t help it, he laughed. It was just so, _Keith_. He pushed off of Keith’s chest and fell back against Blue again, hands resting in the thoroughly flattened alien grass at his sides. “You’re nuts.” he grinned, and it didn’t feel painfully fake. “If any of us goes down solo, it’ll be you.”

“What?” Keith’s entire face scrunched up in offense, the sight lighting something warm in Lance’s chest. This was familiar territory, familiar was good.

“I mean, you’re the one who tried to take on Zarkon solo. Seriously, what kind of crazy guy takes on the final boss _on his own_?”

And then, miracle of miracles, Keith _laughed_. “I’m the Red Paladin.” Keith said, wearing a small but not-at-all-mocking smile. “It’s kinda my MO.”

“Shut up, Leeroy Jenkins.” Lance grinned, giving Keith a friendly punch in the shoulder.

“Who’s Leeroy Jenkins?” Keith frowned. Lance knew his mouth fell open, but for a long second all he could do was stare at Keith.

“You don’t know Leeroy Jenkins?!”

“Should I?”

Lance groaned and dragged his hand down his face. “Ok, when we get back to the castle Pidge and I are going to _educate_ you.”

Keith’s stomach abruptly growled, and Lance got to his feet. He just had to keep busy and he’d be fine. Avoid thinking about his situation beyond superficial thoughts, and he could get through this until they got to a healing pod and reversed it. “C’mon.” he said, walking towards the side of the hill that lead down to the river. “There’s clean water, and some edible shit downstream.”

“And how do you know it’s edible?” Keith frowned, getting to his feet and following Lance downhill.

“Trial and error.” Lance grinned, tucking his arms behind his head. Keith rolled his eyes, but Lance chose not to comment on that.

\---

Later, while Keith used his weird knife to gut and skin the pair of the possum-sized six-legged squirrel-monkeys (Lance was never letting Keith name anything ever again) Lance had shot down, Lance stacked up the firewood Keith had gathered and tried to will his bayard to form a flamethrower. No dice. He glowered at the small blaster in his hand, roughly the size of the pistols they’d used in the Garrison’s shooting range for the first few weeks, then shrugged and aimed into the pile of uprooted grasses which were serving as tinder. His bayard shot blasts of energy, and energy meant heat, so in theory this should work.

His first shot sent the carefully teepeed fuel flying, but the ground in the middle of their impromptu safety ring was smoking and smouldering. Lance gathered up the scatter sticks and logs, and this time just piled a little bit of the uprooted grass over the smoking hole from his first shot. The second blast scattered most of the grass pretty handily, but what remained had glowing embers on it. Close enough, damn it. He grabbed another handful, and carefully put it next to the smouldering pieces before blowing gently on the embers.

“C’mon, catch already.” he growled, cupping his hands around the dying sparks. He blew again, and the embers leapt into tiny flames. Ten minutes later, he had a log cabin fire going and thin grey smoke was rising peacefully on the gentle breeze. He sat back, and wished they had the stuff to make s’mores. Cats couldn’t taste sweetness, and for all he knew the galra couldn’t either. But he’d started off human, so surely he’d still be able to eat chocolate and stuff, right?

“Nice fire.” Keith said as he came up to the campsite, bayard on his hip and skinned squirrel-monkeys in hand. “Any idea how we’re cooking these?”

Lance held up two forked sticks in one hand, and a metal rod he’d gotten from Blue’s small on-board storage unit in the other. “The old-fashioned way.”

Keith found twine in Red’s storage unit, and Lance held the pole while the Red Paladin tied their dinner to it. The squirrel-monkeys looked a lot smaller without their fur and heads and sometimes-puffy tails, but they weren’t food goo and that was what really mattered. The taste was weird, though, and after a few bites he clicked his fingers, drawing Keith’s attention.

“Garrison meatloaf!” he held up his meat with a grin. “That’s what this tastes like.”

Keith took a bite of his own roasted carcass, then tilted his head and made an affirmative sound. “Huh, it kinda does.” he looked down at the meat, and a small grin flitted across his face. “Remember the time someone found an ear in theirs?”

Lance snorted, and nearly dropped his dinner. “Lisa.” he nodded, gesturing with his skewered squirrel-monkey. “Dios mio, she screamed so loud Hunk fell off the bench. I thought I was gonna have to heimlich him.” he chuckled at the memory, and for the first time since the wormhole went haywire things felt almost okay.


	3. Chapter 3

Lance winced, and gingerly removed the maybe-not-actually-food from his mouth. Keith had dared him to eat one of the crystalised food goo bars they found in Red’s storage unit while looking for breakfast, and Lance had never been one to turn down a dare. Now, though, he was regretting that.

“Is that a tooth?” Keith asked, staring at the green block in Lance’s hand.

“Yeah.” Lance frowned, probing at the empty spot with his tongue. “Shit, I think it didn’t came out all the way.”

“Okay, so those aren’t for human consumption.” Keith shut the box.

“Can you look for me?” Lance asked, pulling his lip up to reveal the hole where his tooth had been. It wasn’t like he slacked on brushing his teeth, either, so the blame was squarely on the goo-bar.

Keith leaned in, and his face twisted in an unfamiliar expression. Not quite confusion, but something close. “Uh, I think you’re growing another one.”

“What?” Lance recoiled, poking at the gap with his index finger. The rough end of his picked-short nail scraped against the roof of his mouth, but he could definitely feel that the point of enamel wasn’t a shard. It was the tip of a new tooth, one that felt very pointy. And one of the teeth next to it felt loose.

“Weird.” Keith cocked his head slightly to the side, his ever-intense gaze focused on Lance’s mouth. Lance quickly turned, grabbing up his helmet and using the visor as an impromptu mirror. Yes, that was a pointy new tooth growing into the gap, and yes that was a loose tooth next to it. A quick check revealed one of his left molars was loose, and also three of his lower teeth.

“What’s going on?” he asked rhetorically, his voice coming out much smaller than he would’ve liked.

“Do you not remember losing your baby teeth?” Keith frowned, his face only just visible over Lance’s shoulder in his makeshift mirror. “The old ones have to come out to make room for the new ones coming in.”

“Yeah, but you only get two sets of teeth!” Lance wiggled one of his loose teeth with his index finger.

“If you’re human.”

Lance lowered his helmet, letting it slip from his loose grasp and thud on the floor of the Red Lion’s storage unit. Right, he’d put it out of his mind while hunting down dinner last night and managed to half forget it. He was turning into a galra, inside and out. “Right.” he said quietly, tossing the goo bar aside and stooping to pick up his helmet. “I’m gonna go shoot some more squirrel-monkeys for breakfast. Call me if we get a transmission.” he jammed the helmet on his head, and walked out of Keith’s lion as quickly as he could without breaking into a jog.

\---

Hunting squirrel-monkeys had sounded like a great idea when he wanted to get away from Keith, but unfortunately it left him with nothing to do but think until one of the critters came into his line of sight. He was turning into a galra, but despite being zapped by the same purple lightning Keith was still fully human. Keith’s burns were a little bit purple, true, but they were already healing and his skin was growing back in its normal colour. Lance, on the other hand...

He looked down at his hands, at the thick fuzz of purple which covered the tops of his arms and crept down just that little bit past his wrist. The same magic which burnt Keith had made him change into a galra over the course of a few days. The only thing that made sense, much as he hated to even think about it, was that he’d been galra all along and somehow never realized it. He’d been adopted, just like all his siblings, but the more he thought about it the more it made sense.

Salome had always claimed he cheated at hide and seek, because he could never explain how he found everyone so fast. He’d always been the best tree climber in his class, able to scale even palm trees, and he’d never been able to explain how _right_ it felt to be perched atop the tallest tree around. He’d fallen in love with the stars as a child, always seeking out the highest places to sit and be close to them. Getting his acceptance letter for the Galaxy Garrison’s pilot program had been the happiest day of his life, he still remembered the way he’d lain in bed and stared at the glow-in-the-dark star chart on the ceiling, grinning like a loon.

It had never seemed odd, either. Amalia had fallen in love with the sea at around the same time, spending every afternoon she could manage at the beach. Lance sighed, and wondered how his sister was doing back on Earth. How had she done in her last wind-surfing competition? Was she still poring through the library’s back-issues of Marine Biologist, or had she moved on to National Geographic?

Something moved, and Lance didn’t think before squeezing the trigger. A bolt of blue light flew from his bayard’s barrel, and Lance had to blink in shock as a squirrel-monkey fell from a branch five trees away. He hadn’t even been aiming at that thing, or at least not consciously. Another squirrel-monkey skittered across the same branch, and Lance looked through his rifle’s sights. The second shot he took, he saw the bolt enter the creature’s skull.

Well, upside to the shit-show which was his life right now, apparently his aim had improved a bit. Not much, he’d been a damn good shot even at the Garrison, but a headshot on a small moving animal was still no small thing. He’d have to rub it in Keith’s face later, how his sorta-rival may be a more agile pilot but _he_ was the better shot. That’d involve admitting Keith was better than him at something, but so long as he made it clear he was better overall and Keith was just more agile he could still come out looking better. Well, as much better as he could look when he was purple and fluffy.

Lance scowled, but stopped when his ears flicked back against his skull. What the actual fuck? His ears moved. His ears, _moved_. “Okay, weirdness limit reached.” he muttered, ears flicking back upright. He was definitely not going to think about this until after breakfast, at the very least. The two squirrel-monkeys had blaster holes clean through their tiny little brains, and Lance grinned at he picked them up by the tails. Showing up Keith and bragging about his skills were nice, normal things. They’d tide him over until he could figure out whether this new development was cool weird or scary weird.

\---

“Are your ears... twitching?” Keith frowned across the fire, poking at the roasting squirrel-monkeys which were looking to be more lunch than breakfast.

Lance scowled at him, and felt his ears flick back against his skull. He’d been so successful at not thinking about it, too. “What if they are?” he snapped, curling his hands into fists. His new purple nails had finished growing in, and the claw-like points bit into his palms. Another tooth had come out on the way back to camp, and the needle-sharp replacement was already halfway in. At this rate, his teeth would be all gone by the end of the week.

“Sorry I asked.” Keith huffed, looking pointedly away. Lance looked back into the fire, absently wiggling one of his loose lower teeth. It would be coming out before the end of the day, he just knew it.

For a few long minutes, the only sound was the crackling of the fire and the wind in the tall grasses they hadn’t trampled flat to the ground. Normally Lance would fill the silence with inane chatter, but with the way today had been going he’d probably end up babbling about shit Keith had no business knowing, fellow Paladin or no.

“We could tie some floss around them.” Keith said abruptly. Lance looked up, mouth pulled down into a scowl which Mami had always said made him look like a petulant child.

“Around what?”

“Your loose teeth. That’s a thing people do, right?” Keith tilted his head slightly. “Tie some floss around a tooth and a door handle, then slam the door?”

Lance rolled his eyes, and gestured expansively at their lions behind him. “Have _you_ seen any slammable doors in our lions?”

“Red’s slammed the door in my face a few times.” Keith shrugged casually, as if he hadn’t just admitted his lion was borderline mutinous.

“Still, there’s no doorknobs.”

“There’s the bathroom.” Keith said, and Lance felt his ears flick forward.

“Instead of tying the loose end to a doorknob, we could tie it to something inside the bathroom.”

“And then I stand outside while you shut the door?” Lance frowned, thinking for a second, then shrugged. “Why the hell not.” it couldn’t be any worse than when Fernanda insisted she could punch his loose molar out to get Ratoncito Pérez to visit before they went to the movies. It had worked in the end, but the entire left side of his jaw had been black and blue for a week.

\---

It could, in fact, be worse than Fernanda punching out his tooth.

Lance sat up with a groan as the door opened, rubbing at his cheek. Stupid Keith, suggesting they do all his loose teeth at once. Or would it be stupid him for taking the challenge? No, definitely stupid Keith.

“I hate you.” he moaned, prodding at the holes where his teeth used to be with his tongue. There were no pointy enamel tips in there yet, just twinging gaps where teeth had been a few seconds before.

“They came out, didn’t they?” Keith smirked, gathering up the bloody teeth. Lance held out a hand, and they were poured into his palm.

“So weird.” he muttered, running his thumb over the tiny pile. “I thought they’d be bigger.”

“With your big mouth, so did I.”

“Hey!” Lance scowled, ears flicking back for a second before settling back into their resting position. “My mouth is a perfectly normal size.”

“Right.” Keith rolled his eyes, and Lance looked back down at the teeth in his palm.

“I wonder if Altea had their own Ratoncito Pérez.” he mused, curling his hand into a fist so the teeth wouldn’t fall and get lost in Blue’s cockpit as he stood up. “It’d be nice to get another visit from him.” Allura’s mice seemed to be smart enough, that was for sure, but did Altea even have physical currency? He’d poked around in a handful of rooms between missions and trainings, and hadn’t found anything resembling spare change lying around.

“Who’s Ratoncito Pérez?” Keith frowned.

Lance rolled his eyes, then turned and walked over to his pilot seat. Blue had given it a cup holder on the side at some point, which was kinda silly in Lance’s opinion since it wasn’t like he had a water bottle to put there, but right now it was very handy. “Ratoncito Pérez is a very talented little mouse.” he said simply, straightening up. “When you lose a baby tooth, you put it under your pillow and in the night he comes to take it. He replaces it with something else he found running around the city though, like a piece of candy or a peso coin.”

When he turned around, Keith was wearing one of the most shit-eating grins he’d ever seen on the mulleted idiot. Lance frowned and crossed his arms. “What? You asked.”

“The tooth fairy.” Keith looked as smug as Lance had ever seen him, and he’d seen Keith look pretty damn smug. “You actually believe in the tooth fairy?”

“No.” Lance frowned. “Fairies aren’t real. Ratoncito Pérez is just a really smart mouse, like Allura’s.”

“You believe in the _tooth fairy_.” Keith was outright smiling now, and it made him look like an absolute _asshole_. Lance felt his ears flick back, and this time they stayed back. Not all the way against his head, but close enough that he knew Keith noticed.

“Like you never did?”

“Only until I lost my first tooth.” Keith’s smile vanished, and he pushed past Lance to start towards the exit. “I’m gonna go get more firewood.”

Lance mentally chalked that argument up as a draw, and walked into the bathroom to untie the knotted mess of floss looped around the upper track of the tiny shower’s sliding door.

\---

Lance poked at the fire, and used his free hand to scratch an itch on the back of his occupied one. his nails dug into the flesh, and he pulled his hand away with a hiss. He’d been doing that all day and he still kept forgetting that his new nails were sharp enough to actually hurt him. And if they were sharp enough to hurt him, what about his family? His moms, his siblings, his aunts and uncles and cousins and grandparents. He didn’t want to hurt any of them, scare any of them, but what would be the cost of that? The only surefire way he could think of would be to just never go home, but even the thought of that made something wrench painfully in his chest.

And that was assuming they even made it back to Earth in one piece. Assuming he and Keith weren’t the only ones left. Assuming the rest of his friends didn’t shove him out an airlock when they saw him again.

“What’s on your mind?”

Keith’s voice broke the relative silence of the night, and Lance startled a bit, the thick purple hair on his arms all standing on end. Great, now he looked like a startled cat and Keith was still _looking_ at him as the hair settled back down. Head tilted just slightly to the side, eyes focused on him with that weird intensity. Lance’s skin prickled, and he looked away before his arms went fluffy again.

“The others.” he said, his voice low. “I know they’re my friends too, but-”

“Too?” Keith interrupted, and Lance just _knew_ he was blushing.

“Shut up!” he snapped, claws biting into his palms. “I meant too like, like- like including my friends back on Earth!”

“Uh-huh.” Keith grinned that smug asshole grin and sat back, leaning his weight on his sword arm. “Like we didn’t have a bonding moment yesterday.”

“That was not a bonding moment!” Lance said loudly.

“You cried all over my armour.” Keith said, one eyebrow lifting skeptically.

Lance opened his mouth, but he couldn’t exactly deny that he had, in fact, cried all over Keith’s armour. He was never going to live that down, was he? But he could still cuss Keith out for being enough of an asshole to bring it up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have _opinions_ about Lance's family and his childhood.


	4. Chapter 4

Keith woke slowly, his surroundings entering his awareness in bits and pieces. A stiff breeze ruffling the tall yellow grass, not yet warmed by the sun. Lance’s quiet snoring a few feet away. The strange, mossy smell of this planet’s dirt. Keith opened his eyes, and frowned at the diffuse light. The sun _was_ up, but the sky was so horrendously overcast neither of them had noticed. He sat up, and looked over at Lance. The Blue Paladin had lost his final human tooth after dinner last night, and if you put him in the Empire’s uniform Lance would’ve looked like any other galra.

Except, well, he was still Lance. Keith didn’t really get the whole ‘rivalry’ thing that Lance kept insisting on, never had, but if that was how Lance wanted to be friends he’d roll with it. Their lions would be healed enough to start searching outside this solar system in a few days, and from there it was really only a matter of time until they found the castle. The lions obviously had some sort of homing device if Blue had been able to find it from halfway across the universe, so their return to base wasn’t an if but a when. And when they got back, Lance would see that nobody gave a shit what he looked like so long as he was still himself, and then he could stop worrying about it.

Keith leaned towards Lance, intending to shake his friend awake, but paused before grabbing the Blue Paladin’s shoulder. Lance looked so _fluffy_ , and the weird buzzing snore was as much assurance as any that he was deeply asleep. Keith slowly moved his hand over to the side of Lance’s head, where wispy brown hair had given way to thick purple fur. He glanced at Lance’s face, eyes catching on the deadly sharp fangs visible in Lance’s open mouth, and carefully brushed his fingers against the tuft of fur on the tip of Lance’s ear.

It was just as soft as it looked, and Keith trailed his hand down the back of Lance’s ear gently. He was just, soft. Fluffy. Keith dug his fingers in a little bit at the base of Lance’s ear, which was much smaller than Sendak’s, and stilled as Lance stopped snoring. The silence only lasted for a second, though, and Keith’s eyes went wide as Lance started _purring_. That was the only word which came to mind to describe the noise he was making, a low rumble which reminded Keith vaguely of a grade school field trip to the zoo.

Keith dug his fingers in a little more, scratching at the base of Lance’s ear, and the Blue Paladin’s head tilted towards him. Holy shit, this just might make the best blackmail material ever. He settled into a more comfortable sitting position, and took the chance to get a good look at just how alien his friend had become. Needle-sharp teeth, wickedly curved claws, thick purple fur, yellow eyes which had only the barest darkening to indicate where the pupil should be, and of course, pointy fluffy cat ears.

Wait, eyes? Keith looked back at Lance’s face, and his heart dropped into his stomach at the lazy smile he saw there. Lance was awake, and now actively leaning into Keith’s touch. Another purr rumbled out of his chest, and the Blue Paladin’s eyes widened as he seemed to realize he was, in fact, awake. They jerked apart almost in synch, and Lance’s hands flew up to pin his ears back against his skull.

“What the _fuck_!?” he yelped, head tilting quickly to alternate his gaze between Keith and his own chest. “Was I _purring_?!”

“Yes?” Keith answered after a moment.

Lance lifted a hand, and prodded at the fluffy spot behind his ear. A strange expression crossed his face, and he lowered his hands to rest on the ground. “O-kay.” he said slowly, gaze fixed on his hands. “That’s new. New and _weird_.”

Keith nodded. “Really weird.” he stood up, and looked at the clouds overhead. “We should get the sleeping bags back in our lions.”

They packed up camp quickly and quietly, and Keith kept half an eye on Lance all the while. Every once in a while, the Blue Paladin’s ears would twitch and he’d reach up to scratch at them. This planet’s rain, as it turned out, fell fast enough that the droplets actually _hurt_. Blue was closer when the downpour began, so Keith followed Lance into the larger lion. The lanky purple paladin operated the little onboard food goo machine while Keith leaned against the wall, watching as dark droplets traced paths through Lance’s wet fur. That was weird. Why would the water on Lance be dark?

Lance held out a bowl of food goo, and Keith took it along with the offered fork. The fork with smears of purple on its handle.

“Lance?” he frowned, sticking the fork in the food goo to free up one hand. Lance had lifted a hand to scratch behind his ear, and now his claws looked darker and wetter than before. “Is something wrong?”

“Nah.” Lance shook his head. “Just an itch that won’t go away.”

Keith set down his bowl on the narrow counter-like surface along the wall, and stepped into Lance’s personal space. “Let me see.”

“Dude, I’m fine.” Lance was frowning now, and tried to bat Keith’s reaching hand away. Keith caught him by the wrist, and glared until Lance’s shoulders and ears slumped downwards. “Alright, you can take a look.”

The back of Lance’s ear was more or less untouched, soft purple fur slicked down by the rain, but the scalp just behind it was another story. The fur was matted with what could only be blood, the skin beneath lacerated by countless scratches. It hurt just to look at. “Stay here.” he said firmly, starting towards the door. “And don’t scratch.”

Lance started to say something, but it was cut off when the door closed behind him. The first aid kit was right where Keith thought it would be, tucked under the pilot’s seat just like it was in Red, and he hurried back to the cupboard of a kitchen with it under one arm.

“Dude, what-”

“You’re an idiot, you know that?” Keith snapped, setting the first aid box down with more force than was strictly necessary. Lance, surprisingly, didn’t retort. Keith worked quickly, sponging the wound as dry as he could manage before packing the area with gauze and wrapping bandages around Lance’s head to hold it in place. “No more scratching.” he said firmly, putting the small roll of tape back in the box along with what little gauze and bandages he hadn’t used.

“But it _itches_.” Lance whined, lifting a hand towards his ear. Keith slapped him across the knuckles.

“Ignore it.”

“Keeiiith.” Lance pouted, tilting his head back so Keith could clearly see his face.

“Fine.” Keith rolled his eyes, and as Lance lifted a hand he pressed his fingers to the wad of bandages and gauze. Lance yelped and jumped away from Keith, ears flicking back against his skull.

“What was that for?”

“Don’t. Scratch.”

Lance pouted harder, if that was possible, and Keith crossed the small space between them. “If it really itches that bad...” he lifted his hand, and curled his fingers around Lance’s ear to scratch the back of it. Some of the tension immediately left Lance’s shoulders, and he leaned into Keith’s touch a bit. “We’re friends, right?”

A low purr left Lance’s throat, and after a moment he nodded. He stepped away after a few quiet seconds, and Keith turned to pick up his bowl of food goo. They ate in near silence, the room filled with the sound of rain on Blue’s- skin? hull?- armour, and for once Keith was glad of Lance’s uncharacteristic silence.

“I wonder if it’s a galra thing.” he mused as he was putting his dish in the slot for dirties.

“What?” Lance asked, ears flicking forward momentarily.

“The ear thing.” Keith gestured at his own ears. “Like, is that just you or do all galra like to get scratched there?”

“Even Zarkon?” Lance grinned, ears in their usual position. That they weren’t drooping at Keith calling Lance galra was something the Red Paladin took pride in for a second. Then Lance’s question registered, and he couldn’t help but snort. Zarkon, the big bad Emperor of the Universe, probably liked being scratched behind the ears. Lance burst out laughing a moment later, and before Keith knew it the rain outside was all but inaudible.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Have you ever heard a cat snoring? Go on youtube and look it up. Lance is making a noise halfway between that and a normal obnoxious human snore. Also, please take a moment to imagine Zarkon getting ear scritches and purring. Just, imagine that.


	5. Chapter 5

The rain was showing no signs of letting up any time soon, so after Keith kicked his ass in a sparring match Lance had scrounged up a stool from the storage room. Now they were sitting in Blue’s cockpit, soft static crackling from his helmet in his lap and Keith fiddling with his bayard.

“You never talk about your family.” he said, breaking the relative silence which had fallen over the room.

“Don’t have any to talk about.” Keith shrugged. “Mom died when I was little.”

“Oh.” Lance looked down at his helmet, smoothing his thumb over the line where blue met white on the side of his helmet. “I’m sorry.”

“What for?” Keith frowned in Lance’s peripheral vision. “It’s not your fault.”

Lance rolled his eyes. “It’s just what you say, pendejo.”

Keith shrugged again, hanging his bayard on his hip. “What about your family?”

Lance grinned despite himself, and leaned back a bit in his seat. “Huge.” his eyes slid shut.

“That’s it?” Keith sounded upset, and Lance knew his grin probably looked threatening with his new teeth but he couldn’t bring himself to care.

“I’ve got two moms, four sisters, Salome, and at _least_ fifteen cousins. And that’s just the direct ones.”

“Wow.” Keith said after a moment. “What’s it like, having so many people around all the time?”

“Well, they’re not all around all the time. Most of my cousins live in other towns nearby, and everyone’s only all together around the major holidays. My siblings, though.” he chuckled. “When Isi and Fernanda are home from college, it’s a madhouse. Isi’s got her fiance, ne’s really cool and-.”

“Ne?” Keith interrupted, and Lance cracked open one eye to see the Red Paladin was frowning in evident confusion.

“Yeah, ne. It’s a pronoun. Anyway, Isi’s got Guiomar and they’re getting married in October. Or got married, I guess, we’ve been out here for a while. Then there’s Fernanda. She taught me how to flirt.”

Keith snorted, and Lance reached out to punch the back of his shoulder. “It works for her! She’s had more girlfriends than I can count. And every single one has been able to kick my ass. Amalia’s, like, practically my twin. She’s only a few months older than me, so we did everything together when we were little. I think you’d get along with her, actually.” Lance turned his head slightly to look at Keith. “She can actually take most of Fernanda’s girlfriends in a fight.”

“Are all big families this violent, or is it just yours?” Keith asked, and Lance wished he could tell if his sorta-friend was joking.

Lance shrugged, and looked back out at the rain-covered windshield. It felt like someone had welded a lump of solid steel to the inside of his ribcage, and a chunk of it had broken off to try migrating up to his throat. He’d already cried once in front of Keith. Doing it again would basically ensure that the jerk would never let him live it down.

“I never knew having a family could be...” Keith trailed off, and Lance’s heart wrenched painfully. He was homesick, yes, but Keith didn’t even have anywhere to be homesick for. Didn’t have a family waiting for him on Earth, just an empty shack and a hoverbike.

“You could find out.” Lance offered, swallowing the lump in his throat and managing to sound like he hadn’t just been on the verge of tears. “When we get back to Earth, you could come to Veradera with me. My moms would make you a McClain on the spot.”

“Really?” Keith’s head lifted, and Lance felt his face heating with a blush. Had he seriously just invited his _rival_ home to meet his moms and siblings? They’d tear him apart! Lance wasn’t sure if the one getting killed would be Keith or himself, but honestly the answer was probably both. His moms would kill him for going missing, and his siblings would do Keith in just to see if they could.

“I mean, not _just_ you.” he blustered quickly. “My moms are gonna want to know who I’ve been running around the universe with. Hunk knows ‘em, kinda, but Pidge- Pidge probably doesn’t even know Viv exists, wow. Or Salome, they’d probably get along like a house on fire.”

“That sounds nice.” Keith said, a small but genuine smile pulling at the corners of his mouth.

Lance completely forgot about the weight in his chest, his mind going blank for a second because Keith was _smiling_. Not smirking, not grimacing, but really actually smiling. “Holy shit, you actually don’t look like an asshole.” he blurted, sitting up in his chair so fast it wobbled a little.

Keith scowled, pulling his bayard from its little clip thing. “What was that?”

“Just, normally you look like an asshole.” Lance shrugged, and immediately yelped and dove forward as Keith gave a battle cry, swinging his bayard like a pair of brass knuckles.

The rain stopped a minute or two later, but neither of them noticed.


	6. Chapter 6

“Do you really think this’ll make a difference?” Lance asked, gaze flicking between the radio screen and the windshield.

“Absolutely.” came Keith’s response through Lance’s helmet. “Did you pay attention in _any_ of your classes at the Garrison?”

“Of course I did!” Lance huffed. “You’re the one who flunked out.”

“I was expelled. There’s a difference, cargo pilot.”

Lance growled in frustration, then jerked his head back in surprise as a deep, menacing rumble filled Blue’s cockpit. Had that sound just come from _him_? On the other end of the line, Keith wasn’t even breathing. “Sorry.” Lance forced a grin, even though the Red Paladin couldn’t see him. “Didn’t realize I could do that.”

“Well, you can purr, so.” Keith probably shrugged. Lance rolled his eyes.

“So are we just flying around listening, or should we try sending out signals of our own?” he asked after a few long, boring minutes. Space was beautiful, sure, but it could get pretty monotonous.

“We’re already on open comms, so if anyone gets in range we’ll hear them.”

Another few minutes of torturous silence passed as they flew in widening circles around the star at the heart of this solar system. “Do you wanna sing?” Lance asked, looking at the Red Lion out of the edge of Blue’s windshield.

“What?” Keith sounded like his face was crinkled in confusion, which was a pretty funny mental image.

“Y’know, like, road trip songs.”

“I have no clue what you’re talking about.” Keith replied flatly, and Lance facepalmed.

“Fine, I’ll teach you some.”

“I never asked-”

“Había una vez un barquito chiquitito, había una vez un barquito chiquitito.” Lance sang, the familiar melody coming easily. “Que no podía, que no podía, que no podía navegar.”

“You can sing?” Keith sounded shocked, and Lance huffed.

“Yeah. So?”

There was a moment of silence, then Lance swore he could hear Keith shrug. “It’s less annoying than your speaking voice, that’s for sure.”

“Hey!” Lance bristled, ears twitching under his helmet. “My voice is like fucking velvet, mullet head.”

“Says who, your mom?”

“Yes!” Lance snapped back, and ok maybe his voice had gone a bit high there but for all he knew he was going through alien puberty and some cracking was to be expected. “Mamá and Mami had me and mis hijos in chorus all through primary school, and I always beat out Amalia for the good parts.”

“That’s your singing voice, though.” Keith pointed out, and Lance caught himself growling again.

“You think yours is any better?” he challenged, and Keith snorted.

“Name a song.”

“Oh no, you wanted to make this about speaking voices.” Lance frowned, and wished that the Lions had some sort of video link. “Your speaking voice is way more irritating than mine, and I’m sure everyone else will agree with me.”

“No way.”

Before he knew it, Lance was looking at the solar system from the outside, and Keith still hadn’t admitted that his voice was the more annoying one between them. The conversation was ended when Keith shut off his comms for the night, and Lance made himself comfortable as best he could in his pilot seat. They’d do it all over again tomorrow, and the next day, and the next, until they picked something up.

\---

“Es rojo quien gana, quien gana, es rojo quien gana el león azul.” Keith spat over the comms.

“Es azul quien gana quien gana, es azul quien gana el león rojo.” Lance fired back with a grin, raising his voice just a bit louder than Keith’s had been. The rhythm was a little different from the school bus chant he’d grown up with, and the rhyming scheme didn’t work so well on Keith’s end, but it was still fun to yell back and forth. And if any aliens intercepted the transmission, it’d probably sound like gibberish. Hell, Keith’s Spanish was so bad half of it already sounded like gibberish.

They were yelling the simple words back and forth at the tops of their lungs for a solid three lines before Keith dropped to a whisper, and without the Red Paladin’s near-deafening bellow in his ear Lance suddenly heard a beeping sound. “Holy shit!” he yelped, bringing up the comms screen. “Someone’s hailing us!”

“This is why I said singing was a bad idea.” Keith huffed.

“We were chanting, not singing.” Lance said, urging Blue to accept the incoming signal. The signal was coming from altean tech, which meant it had to be from either Allura and Coran or another Paladin.

“Is this thing on?”

“Pidge!” Lance beamed, straightening up from where he’d been leaning forward over the controls a bit.

“Cool. So, guys, this is a recording.”

Lance’s heart fell a bit, but Pidge’s voice was still a welcome sound after what felt like ages of being stuck with only Keith for company.

“First things first, I’m okay. I landed on a galra occupied planet, but it’s not galra occupied anymore where I was. Their base went up in the most _epic_ fireball. I wish you’d been there to see it.”

Lance could practically hear Pidge’s grin, and couldn’t help but smile in response.

“I mean, I got it on tape but it’s not the same, y’know? Anyways, I made some new friends while I was there, and one of them’s coming back to the castle with me. Say hello, Bopper.”

A series of synthesized chirps and warbles filled the lull, and Lance could’ve sworn he heard Keith laugh.

“So, there’s a planet that now has a robot army to go around taking out the rest of the galra bases. I taught a few of the smarter ones how to cheat the restrictions in their coding, and now that I say it out loud that sounds like it could be a really bad thing later...” Pidge trailed off into silence, and Lance chuckled. Trust the smallest Paladin to get so caught up in robots that common goddamn sense fell to the wayside.

“Anyway, I’m sure the locals can handle themselves, but once everyone’s back together we can talk about checking to make sure I didn’t accidentally create a planet where the robots overthrew the galra and took over. Fingers crossed.” Pidge chuckled nervously. “See you soon, I hope.”

The signal cut out after that, and Lance was pretty sure his mouth fell open. Pidge making a robot friend was unsurprising. Pidge potentially breaking every rule of robotics and putting bots in charge of a planet wasn’t much less unexpected. Pidge taking down a galra base singlehanded, though, was so out-there Lance wouldn’t believe it ‘til he saw the video. Seriously, _Pidge_? One Lion wasn’t enough to take out an entire base, and Pidge frankly didn’t have the muscle to do it by hand.

They st in silence for almost a minute before Lance spoke up. “So, did you hear anything about _where_ we’re supposed to meet up?”

“No.” Keith probably shook his head at that. Red beeped, and Blue began to purr. “But Red did.” he sounded excited, and Lance heard the sound of buttons being pressed. “Green sent a message straight to our lions. We have coordinates!”

“Yes!” Lance punched the air, heady elation sweeping away all the lingering doubt and fear. “I swear, Keith, I could kiss you right now!”

On the other end of the line, Keith went dead silent. Lance felt his ears and face warming, and knew he was blushing something awful. Why the hell had he said that? Why had he said it to _Keith_ of all people?

“Aren’t you usually supposed to buy someone dinner, first?” Keith asked, breaking the silence just before it could get really awkward.

“Okay first, for the record, I said I _could_ kiss you, not that I _would_. And second, I’m the one who shot all those stupid squirrel-monkeys we ate.”

“And then made me clean them.” Keith made a gagging noise.

“You have a knife!”

“You could’ve asked to borrow it.”

“You wouldn’t’ve let me.”

The nearby star faded behind them as they bickered, and by the time they stopped for the night they were far from any alien sun. Red and Blue anchored together at the hip and shoulder, their armour spontaneously magnetizing to keep them from drifting apart overnight and Lance dug out the sleeping bag he’d found in Blue’s storage unit. Another week or so of this, and he could finally sleep in a real bed again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can listen to the song Lance starts singing [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lD6e81Gt3mA) on youtube. Additionally, here are [two](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27AGMXggdqI) [videos](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AOSfLZufOtU) of Lance’s VA singing and [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1mHJkLuZD64) is one of Keith’s. They’re both so talented it’s just unfair.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The underlined text, btw, is a link.

After three nights of sleeping on the floor of Blue’s cockpit and being woken up by Keith yelling over the comms, Lance felt ready to bite something’s head off. And hey, with his new teeth he probably _could_ take the head off of, well, anything small enough he could fit its head in his mouth. Which would honestly be pretty gross, now that he was thinking about it. Eugh. But the point was, he hated this glorified road trip after only three days and they still had a week of travel left until they reached the rendezvous point. School bus chants could only last so long, after all.

“I’m bored.” he said, definitely not whining because he was a Paladin of Voltron and Paladins didn’t whine.

“You’re piloting a giant robot lion in space.” Keith said flatly. “How are you bored?”

“Because it’s boring!” Lance threw his hands up, letting Blue go to autopilot. “We’ve been flying in a straight line for _days_ , and we’re not even halfway there.”

“I can’t believe you were actually going to be a pilot.”

“Hey, at least then I would’ve had my tunes.” Lance crossed his arms and glared at the inside of his helmet. “All Blue’s got is weird-ass Altean music. It sounds like 1980’s synth-pop!”

“Hah, Red’s got better taste.” Keith teased. “Rock is timeless.”

“But is it the same across all species?” Lance challenged. Obscenely loud screaming blasted over the comms a second later, and Lance winced at the noise.

“Close enough.” Keith yelled, louder than the music probably only by value of being closer to the mic.

“Are you _trying_ to deafen me?!” Lance yelled back, and the music dropped to a reasonable volume. It was probably still stupid loud on Keith’s end, but at least his ears no longer felt like they were about to explode.

“Wimp.” Keith huffed.

“Excuse me for wanting to keep my eardrums intact.”

Keith started to say something, but stopped when a red light started flashing on Blue’s screen. Presumably on Red’s too. Lance knew what that one meant.

“Galra!” he yelled, grabbing the controls and disengaging autopilot to peel right. “¡Hijo de puta! Where the quiznack did they come from?” Lance flinched as soon as the words were out of his mouth, but Shiro’s reprimand didn’t come. Right, because Shiro wasn’t here!

“Well that wasn’t very professional.” Keith said dryly, but Lance was pretty sure the Red Paladin was smiling.

“Fuck you.” Lance curved Blue around so he and Keith met up again a ways back from where they’d first pinged the galra forces. “Shiro’s not here, I don’t have to be professional.”

Keith snorted, but when he spoke there was no laughter in his voice. “We’ve got three battleships, all deploying fighter drones, and no backup. We hit them from the flanks with ice and fire, then get in the middle and dogfight.”

“I’m not putting Blue in the middle of that.” Lance shook his head. His Lion was amazing, but she was nowhere near as agile as Keith and Red. “You keep the drones occupied, I’ll take the ships.”

“Fine, just make sure you actually take them down.”

Lance grinned, and for once it felt like his too-sharp teeth belonged in his smile. “You can count on me.”

\---

Destroying galran battleships, as it turned out, was _really fucking hard_. He had to keep dodging fighter drones, because there were just too many of them for Keith to handle on his own, and these ships were sturdier than the one they’d blown up back in Earth’s solar system. Blue’s claws left gouges on the hull, but they didn’t cut all the way through. Lance flicked over to the tail cannon, and blasted three drones to smithereens behind him. “ Neuve, dies, once.” he muttered, doing his best to keep his racing thoughts focused on the battleships and the count of drones he’d taken down. Thinking about how outnumbered they were would only end badly.

“Twenty six, twe-fuck yeah, thirty!”

Lance startled at Keith’s outburst, and whipped Blue around to spray an incoming squad of drones with ice breath. “¡Dieciséis!”

“Thirty three, thirty five.” Keith was almost definitely grinning, and Lance saw Red shoot up out of the cloud of drones. “You know what this battle needs?” there was a click as Keith did something on Red’s control panel, and quiet electronic warbling came through the comms. “[Fight music](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I9ysLmvhY8Y).”

Lance laughed, and pushed Blue towards the command tower of one of the battleships as the music picked up. It was pretty good fight music, yeah, but he was never going to let Keith live this down. “¡Dieciocho!” he called as Blue’s claws swiped through a pair of drones. If he could ice over the command tower well enough, maybe a canon blast would be able to break through and destroy the place.

Keith’s voice cut through the music with more numbers, and Lance fired back with his own rising count. The control deck shattered, and he added four to his count as a handful of humanoid figures were blown out into space along with the debris. Another cannon blast had the ship listing badly, and with a nice big hole to shoot at Blue was soon riding the shockwave of the explosion. Lance whooped, and okay maybe having badass battle tunes in the background did make this more fun.

The second battleship didn’t last half as long, now that he knew the trick to it, and every time Keith called out his updated kill count Lance replied in kind. The drones started to retreat into the final ship as the second one went up in a pretty spectacular fireball, and Keith pulled up next to him.

“We can’t let them come back with reinforcements. Ice the airlocks over, I’ll see how well this hull can take the heat.”

“The control deck is the weak spot.” Lance offered, pushing Blue into a dive towards the retreating stream of drone fighters. A few shots with the tail gun diverted the stream of little ships through the airlock, and Lance sprayed the ones in front with ice. Blue groaned as they came under fire, but Lance just gritted his teeth and pushed the controls forward. He yanked right at the last second, and Blue crashed sideways through the swarm. They came to a stop perfectly in front of the airlock, okay maybe a bit below and to the left, but it was still perfect, and Lance blasted the opening with ice.

It wouldn’t hold long, but all he needed was to stop the drones from loading and it was definitely doing that. Unfortunately, that meant they were now very much focused on attacking him and Blue, and he had no way out. Okay, he might’ve made a _slight_ miscalculation here, but he could handle this!

“One oh seven!” Keith yelled, grin audible.

“¡Noventa y seis!” Lance fired back, taking out another pair of drones with one shot of the tail canon. “¡Noventa y ocho!”

A shockwave rocked Blue, scattering the drones around them, and Lance spun her to see the battleship breaking into cleanly sliced pieces, explosions erupting from most of them. Keith whooped in his ear, and he spotted Red flying by with Voltron’s sword in her mouth.

“Three oh seven!” Keith cried triumphantly, and Lance bristled.

“ _¡Tramposo!_ ” he yelled, pulling Blue out of the swarm of drones as they began to malfunction. “That still only counts as one!”

“You weren’t going to win anyways.”

“It’s still cheating, cheater.” Lance huffed.

“You were counting your battleships as four apiece!”

Lance opened his mouth to say something witty and cutting, but what came out instead was a laugh. Blue rumbled, and he put her back on autopilot towards the rendezvous coordinates. “I can’t believe we just did that.”

The music coming from Keith’s end stopped, and Keith chuckled too. He sounded tired. “Pidge is gonna be so pissed we have a better story than taking down a galra base.”

“Not that.” Lance rolled his eyes, slumping back in his seat. “The kill-counting thing. I’ve only ever done that with Feranda’s girlfriends over videogames. And I got to use the line!” he laughed again, smiling wider than he had since, probably since they left Earth. “Isi’s gonna be so jealous.”

“The line?” Keith asked, audibly confused.

“Y’know, ‘That still only counts as one!’ That line.” Lance did his best Gimli voice for the quote, stretching his arms over his head. “The battle of Pelinor Fields is just, golden.” he sighed.

“I have never heard of any of these things.”

Lance’s arms fell to his sides, and he stared mutely out the edge of Blue’s windshield at Red for a solid second before letting out a groan and facepalming. “Seriously? You’ve never even _heard_ of J. R. R. Tolkein? Father of modern fantasy? Author of the books which were made into six of the greatest fantasy action flicks of the twenty first century?”

“Nope.”

Lance groaned again, and ran a hand over the top of his helmet. “Okay, so first things first there are four books. Hobbit, Fellowship, Two Towers, and Return of the King. Technically five if you count the Silmarillion, but fuck the Silmarillion.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You have no idea how tempted I was to make their fight music Sabotage. But Lance is the nerd, not Keith, and so I wound up going with [this song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I9ysLmvhY8Y). Also, Lance is totally a sci-fi/fantasy dweeb who once tried to marathon all six Hobbit and LotR movies in one sitting. He fell asleep halfway through Battle of Five Armies. His nine-movie Star Wars marathon wasn’t much more successful.


	8. Chapter 8

Movement at the edge of Red’s viewscreen drew Keith’s eye, and he frowned. “Lance, you’re slowing down.”

“Lo siento, lo- shit, sorry.” Lance yawned. Blue sped up back to where she’d been cruising for the past few days, and they fell back into silence. Then Lance’s Lion slowed down again, and Keith rolled his eyes.

“Lance, just put her on autopilot.”

“She is.” Lance huffed. A low rumble came over the comms, and Red seemed to rumble back. “I think-”

“What?”

“I think she’s trying to, idunno, protect me? Stupid robot.” there was a thwack, presumably of Lance hitting some part of his Lion.

“Why would she think you need protecting?” Keith frowned. “We’re going home, not into an enemy base.”

“I’m nervous, okay?” Lance snapped. “I look like a freaking _galra_. Pidge and Shiro are going to try to kill me on sight!”

“No they won’t.” Keith rolled his eyes. Trust Lance to get overdramatic.

“You did.” Lance’s retort lacked its usual fire, and Keith grimaced. That really hadn’t been his proudest moment.

“That was different.” he said, trying to keep himself from sounding defensive. “We were on an alien planet. Allura and Coran would never let an enemy wander around in the castle unchecked, and the others all know that.”

“I guess.” Lance muttered, and sulky really didn’t sound right on him.

“And hey, Blue’s still letting you fly her, so we know you’re still you on the inside.”

Lance chuckled, and Blue’s cruising speed picked up. “Yeah, Blue’s still mine.” Keith could picture Lance patting his Lion’s console with a dopey grin on his face, and quickly shook the mental image away. They were only half an hour from the castle, he had to be alert and ready to guide Red in for landing in case something was obstructing the hangar entrance.

\---

“Okay, if this is Pidge’s idea of a prank then it’s a really shitty one.” Lance grumbled over the comms, his voice carrying just enough of a true growl to make Keith’s hair stand on end. “We’ve been here for three hours!”

“Maybe she’s on the other side of the sun?” Keith offered. “Or still out leaving those recorded messages.”

“I mean, if you’re gonna send out a hidden meet-up message, at least stick around to get met up with!” Lance exclaimed, probably throwing his hands in the air because he was a dramatic asshole like that. Red’s screen lit up suddenly, and Keith sat up straighter as the video link activated. It was staticky for a second, but he only knew of one thing which could hold a two-way video feed with the Lions.

“Lance? Keith?”

“Princess!” Lance was audibly smiling. “Man, it’s nice to talk to someone who’s not Keith.”

“Hey!” Keith flicked Red’s tail out to lash against Blue’s flank. “You said we were friends, asshole.”

“Keith, buddy, we had this conversation. Your voice is anoying.”

“Your voice is annoying.” Keith snapped back, looking to the side of Allura’s video. The altean princess laughed, and Lance thankfully didn’t respond.

“It’s good to see both of you again.” she smiled, and Keith noticed that she looked tired. “Or, one of you. Lance, is there something wrong with your Lion’s camera?”

“Huh? Oh, yeah, I think so.” Lance, Keith realized, was an absolutely terrible liar. “I think that purple lightning stuff messed Blue up pretty bad.”

“Well, I’m certain some time in the castle will help her heal. We’re hidden in the atmosphere of a gaseous planet, fourth from the sun. You should be able to follow the castle’s energy signature from within the atmosphere.”

“Heading in now.” Lance said, and Keith nodded before following after him.

“So, uh, what about Pidge?” Lance asked a minute later, when they were cruising towards the castle’s well-masked energy signature.

“Pidge is currently out with Green, but they should both be back soon.” Allura answered. “We were starting to worry the messages weren’t working.”

“I wasn’t!” Coran said, leaning into frame several feet behind Allura. There was a screwdriver-looking thing tucked behind his ear, and something dark in his moustache. “Pidge’s synapses are the least primitive of the lot of you!”

“Should I be offended?” Keith frowned.

“ _I’m_ offended.” Lance huffed.

“It’s true, though!” Coran stepped fully into frame. “But don’t feel bad, Green has a knack for picking the clever ones. Why, the first Green Paladin helped King Alfor build Voltron!”

“Not helping.” Keith said flatly.

The castle appeared slowly out of the swirling purple clouds ahead of them, and at the sight of it Keith felt a tension leave his body that he hadn’t known was there. The entrance to the hangar wasn’t blocked in any way, but he still manually guided Red in for landing. Stepping out of his Lion once the hangar doors closed felt more like coming home than anything ever had back on Earth, and he exhaled heavily as soon as his helmet was off. After close to a month of living in Red, he was eager to get some rest in his own bed again.

The ground level doors opened, and Allura rushed in. She definitely looked tired, and Keith hoped Shiro got back soon so someone could tell her to take a fucking nap. Her pink and blue eyes flicked from him to Blue, and Keith looked over his shoulder to see Lance had yet to emerge from his Lion.

“One minute.” he sighed, and walked over to the larger robot in the room. “Hey, Lance.” he kicked Blue’s front paw. “Get your dumb ass down here.”

Blue rumbled, and Keith couldn’t understand her like he could Red but the Lion (or her Paladin) was clearly reluctant.

“You can’t hide in there forever.”

Blue slowly knelt, placing her head near the ground and opening her mouth to form a ramp, and Keith could see Lance hesitating at the top of it.

“Don’t make me drag you.” he threatened, and Lance shuffled forward. Just before stepping into view of Allura, though, he straightened up and started walking more normally. There was a bit of a swagger to it, but nothing flamboyant enough to make Keith want to punch him for being an idiot.

“Hey, Princess. Miss me?” Lance grinned and gave a cheerful wave, both of which were blatantly fake. His spine was ramrod straight, the darker spot in the middle of his eye almost invisible, his entire body so tense Keith was mildly surprised the taller Paladin wasn’t shaking.

“Oh.” Allura raised a hand to her mouth, the picture of dainty, elegant surprise. “That was fast.”

“Yeah, I thought he’d take more goading too.” Keith sniped, elbowing Lance in the side. No reaction. Damn, he was tense.

“No, not that.” Allura shook her head, lowering both hands to clasp in front of her skirt. “Your transformation.” she looked Lance over. “It’s supposed to happen over the course of a galran solar cycle or more, and yet-”

“Wait, you knew!?” Lance blurted, interrupting Allura.

“Well, yes.” Allura smiled, visibly confused. “How else would the cryo-pod have healed you? It didn’t have the slightest bit of human dna in its system until you went in.”

“So, he was always going to be a fluff ball?” Keith asked, indicating Lance with a jab of his thumb.

“In short, yes.” Allura nodded. “I suspect that Haggar’s magic may have somehow forced you to transform at an accelerated rate. Was it painful?”

“A little.” Lance grimaced. “The purple itched like hell.” he lifted a hand to scratch behind his ear, and Keith swatted his hand down.

“Claws, remember?” he said when Lance gave him a look.

“Oh, yeah.” Lance scowled at his claws as if they had personally offended him, then rubbed his knuckles against the spot which had been a lacerated mess just a fortnight ago. “Anyway, I’m gonna go shower, put on some clean PJs, and fuckin crash once I feel human again.”

Keith rolled his eyes. Of course Lance would consider the waterless cleaning stalls in their Lions to be insufficient. “We just covered that you’re not human, jackass.” he called after Lance’s retreating back. The only response was a middle finger, which was far more comforting than Keith had ever thought a flipped bird could be. Lance, after a few weeks of quietness and uncertainty, was back to his old self.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter, Pidge!


	9. Chapter 9

Lance spat minty foamy water into the sink, and glared blearily at his reflection. The thick fluffy hair which covered his shins, the tops of his forearms, and the backs of his shoulders felt weird as hell against his shirt and jeans. His flight suit had obviously adjusted while he was wearing it, altean tech was awesome like that, but human clothes weren’t meant to accommodate fur. Which, if he was being honest, was what this shit was. He had fur. God, he was going to have to ask Allura or Coran if he needed to wash his fur like he washed his hair. Coran, probably. Like hell was he asking Allura about something like that.

He sighed, and grabbed the brush off the side of the sink. Time to tackle his fucking bedhead. Couldn’t let Keith’s mullet look better than his perfectly respectable-length hair. He got through precisely four strokes before his hand froze mid-motion, and he leaned in towards the mirror. No, no way. “Oh, joderme.” he groaned, letting his forehead fall against the mirror. He’d thought it was a stroke of luck that his hair hadn’t turned purple, but no, that was just the stuff which had already grown. The roots were growing in purple. Purple! Give it another week and he would look like the victim of a particularly shitty dye job.

And he still had to go to breakfast like this! Keith was going to tease him mercilessly, he just knew it. Maybe he could at least find something to wear which would feel less weird against his fur...

\---

Pidge stretched, and wandered through the halls. Red and Blue had been in the hangar when they landed, which meant Lance and Keith were back. Knowing Keith, he’d probably be training at this hour. He was practically always training, it would’ve been a little annoying if it didn’t make him so easy to find.

Bopper trundled along at Pidge’s side, the quiet sound of caterpillar treads on the smooth floor comforting in an odd way, and Pidge came to a stop outside the training room. The door opened with a tap of their bayard against the operation panel, and Bopper made a distressed screech before Pidge even registered the angry roar as distinct words. 

“I’m gonna rip your throat out with my _teeth_ you quiznak!” the galra yelled, pinning Keith to the ground. Pidge activated their bayard, but Bopper was already there, jabbing his shock-stick against the back of the alien’s thigh. It collapsed on top of Keith with a pathetic groan, and Pidge holstered their bayard before dashing forward. Keith seemed a bit out of it, probably because the galran soldier had been grappling him when Bopper’s programming kicked in, but Pidge was able to drag him free easily enough.

“Keith, are you okay?” Pidge shook his shoulder, and grabbed their bayard again when the galra groaned. “Sorry, after everything with Sendak I thought setting Bopper to taze any galra in the castle would be a good idea. I’ll have to change the code so he’ll only zap if the target isn’t touching one of you guys.”

“What the fuck, Pidge?” Keith groaned, pushing himself up into a vaguely seated position.

“You needed the help, right?” Pidge glanced between Keith and the still-prone galra who, now that they looked again, wasn’t wearing anything resembling an imperial uniform. In fact, those clothes looked almost altean in design.

“No.” Keith scowled. “We weren’t even fighting anymore. He was just being-” Keith’s eyes widened, and Pidge looked back at the galra on the floor. The lanky, brown-haired galra with ears that were way skinnier than Sendak’s and blue, altean clothing.

“Lance?!” Pidge yelped.

“Yeah.” Keith was back to scowling. “He was mad because he lost a sparring match. He wasn’t actually gonna do any of the things he said. He was just being an idiot.”

“Shit.” Pidge sighed, running a hand through their hair. They’d have to redo Bopper’s code, teach it to recognize Lance as a non-threat. Maybe set it to recognise imperial armour? “I should probably apologize to him when he wakes up.”

“What, you’re not gonna apologize to me?” Keith huffed.

“I mean, if it hadn’t been Lance you’d be thanking me right now.” Pidge shrugged, deactivating their bayard and poking Lance with the toe of one shoe. “What happened to him?”

“You got hit with that purple lightning, right?” Keith asked, rubbing at his shoulders. Presumably where Lance had been gripping him. Pidge nodded. That stuff had knocked Green offline for a solid few hours, save basic functions. “Well, Lance is half galra, so that lightning kick-started a transformation.”

Lance wasn’t fully human? Pidge frowned, and looked at their unconscious friend. If he’d been going to look like this eventually no matter what, then they really had to apologize.

“¿Qué demonios fue eso?” Lance groaned, turning onto his side. “Fuckin, cattle prod?” he rubbed where he’d been zapped, and Bopper made a trilling noise.

“Bopper, no.” Pidge said firmly, and the robot chirped in confusion. “Just, power down.” it whined, but did as ordered.

“Oh, hey, Pidge.” Lance levered himself up on one arm. “Should I call you a she or a they or what?”

Pidge squinted at Lance for a moment. “Are you okay?” they asked slowly. Nobody’s first coherent question after getting tazed was about proper pronouns.

“Yeah. Gonna have a nasty mark in the morning, though.” Lance grimaced, sitting up properly. “But seriously, what pronouns do you use?”

Something painfully warm and bright ignited in Pidge’s chest, and they ducked their head to hide the sudden smile that sprang up on their face. “They’s fine.”

“Cool.” Lance grinned, then grunted as he stood up. “Hey, did that cattle prod burn a hole in my pants?”

“Don’t think so.” Pidge shook their head, hanging their bayard on their hip and getting to their feet. “Anyway, I’m only here to grab some food and some sleep before jetting out again. I’ll record a new message, though.”

“Could you, uh...” Lance fidgeted with the hem of his shirt, which was definitely something he’d scrounged up from the castle. “Could you not mention, this?” he gestured at himself, and Pidge pursed their lips.

“Okay.” they said after a moment. “I’ll just say that you and Keith are back already.”

“Thanks.” Lance grinned weakly, ears twitching. Pidge couldn’t help it, they reached out and grabbed one by the tip. It was just as soft and fluffy as it looked.

“Hey!” Lance yelped, jerking away and pinning his ears to his skull with his hands. “What was that for?”

“Science.” Pidge grinned, shrugging their shoulders. Keith sniggered, and as Lance whirled to yell at him Pidge turned and left the room. “Come on, Bopper.” the robot powered up, and trundled after them with a chirp.

\---

Lance growled, and despite being pinned with claws on his throat Keith didn’t even flinch. Instead he slowly, deliberately reached up and dug his fingers into the thick fur behind Lance’s ear. Lance tried to snarl, but the sound that came out was closer to a purr as he leaned into the touch. Fucking cheater, using the same dirty trick two fights in a row when there was nothing Lance could do to counter it. Keith sat up, and Lance scooted back so he wasn’t in the Red Paladin’s lap, nice as that kinda sounded.

Keith was still smiling a little bit, but it wasn’t that smug asshole smile that made Lance want to punch him. It was the same nice smile he’d gotten back in Blue during that rainstorm. Lance looked away before it could be counted as staring, and was suddenly aware of just how quiet the room was. He could hear Keith’s heartbeat, the buzzing of the lights, the quiet idling noises of the machinery which handled the training dummies.

“Thanks.” he said softly, not quite willing to break the peaceful stillness of the room. Keith’s face scrunched in confusion.

“For what? I thought this was cheating.” he reached out and scratched behind Lance’s ear again, not long enough to draw out a purr or make him feel like going limp and boneless but definitely enough to make him want more.

“Well, yeah.” Lance said when Keith lowered his hand again. “But, for Pidge.” he fixed his eyes on a bit of floor where two panels met. “Thanks for telling them what was up.” he glanced back at Keith, and found the Red Paladin smiling that soft smile again.

“What are friends for?” Keith shrugged, rolling to his feet and offering a hand to Lance.

Lance accepted the offer, and Keith pulled him up seemingly effortlessly. Everything felt, kinda distant. Keith had grabbed him by the hand, not the wrist, and even though he was standing they were still holding hands. Keith pulled his hand away, and Lance almost reached out to grab it again before it registered what he was doing. He was trying to hold Keith’s hand. _Keith’s_. Lance suppressed a wince. This was bad. Really bad. Having a crush on his rival/teammate/sorta-friend could only end badly.

He’d just ignore it, and hope it went away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Spoiler alert, it's not gonna go away.


	10. Chapter 10

Hunk hummed quietly to himself, fiddling with the knobs hidden under a panel on the goo machine. There were a few presets programmed in, but he’d gotten the stuff to taste like chicken nuggets once and he could probably do it again. Soft footsteps entered the room, and a chill ran down Hunk’s spine at the sound of a quiet growl. Allura and Coran didn’t growl, and that sound definitely wasn’t human, which meant they had an intruder. He saw motion out of the corner of his eye, a flash of purple, and swallowed a whimper. The galra probably thought he hadn’t noticed it yet. He still had the element of surprise.

Hunk spun the pressure knob, dialing it up as high as it would go, and leapt to his feet with a battle cry. The hose he grabbed spewed something in a toxic shade of pink, and the force of it nearly knocked Hunk off his feet. It did, however, knock the galran intruder off its feet and into the doorframe. Hunk grabbed for his bayard, and levelled the large gun at the unarmoured soldier.

“Qué la _cogida_ , hombre?” it groaned, wiping its face with one clawed hand. “This tastes nastier than Viv’s cookies, what the shit did you _do_?”

That, didn’t sound like anything he’d expected from a galran soldier. In fact, between the Spanish cursing and Viv, it sounded almost like... “Lance?” Hunk lowered his gun slightly, but didn’t dematerialize it.

“Yeah.” the galra glared. No, pouted. That was definitely Lance’s disgruntled pouting face. He flicked his hands, flinging pink goo off to the sides. “And did you _have_ to use the goo hose? I just showered, like, an hour ago. Do you have any idea how long it takes to clean this stupid fluff?” he gestured vaguely at his torso.

Hunk let the gun dematerialize and hung his bayard from its belt clip again. “What... happened?” he said slowly, taking in the sight of Lance with golden eyes and purple skin. Lance, his roommate and best friend at the Garrison, the loudmouthed moron who never shut up about his family and his dreams. Lance tugged his shirt over his head, and grimaced at it.

“Apparently, I’m not all the way human.” he wiped at his face again, and Hunk grabbed a towel.

“What, did your moms find you in a corn field, like Superman?” Hunk grinned weakly, holding out the towel. Lance stuck his tongue out (it was as purple as the rest of him) but accepted the peace offering and wiped his face with it. “I mean, you were adopted, right?”

“So were all my siblings.” Lance frowned, digging a mostly clean bit of the towel into one of his ears.

Hunk shrugged, offering Lance a hand. Lance took it, and Hunk pulled him up to his feet. It really was still Lance, if you looked past the purple skin and glowy eyes and twitching ears. Lance pulled away, shoulders hunching forward, and Hunk frowned. Lance yelped when Hunk reached out to pull him into a tight hug, but didn’t struggle. “It’s good to see you again, buddy.”

“Ribs.” Lance squeaked, and Hunk loosened his hold a bit. The Blue Paladin hugged him back briefly, and when the hug ended Hunk held Lance out at arm’s length.

“Wow.” he chuckled, looking his friend up and down quickly. “You’re really covered in that stuff.”

“And whose fault is that?” Lance fired back, but he was grinning as he shook his head vigorously, sending bits of aggressively pink goo flying everywhere.

Hunk laughed as he raised an arm to shield himself, but it didn’t work very well. When he lowered it, Lance was smiling with a mouthful of way-too-sharp teeth and his short brown hair was sticking up every which way. So was the purple stuff around his ears. “You must be really fluffy when you’re not covered in goop.” he said, reaching out and curling his fingers around the back of Lance’s ear. The fur was slicked up in clumps, and he could feel a rough patch of scars on Lance’s scalp but decided not to comment on those.

Instead he scratched at the spot where ear met skull. Lance leaned into his hand, eyes sliding half shut, and after a moment Hunk realized that his half-alien friend was purring. _Purring_. Okay, this was kinda awesome. Lance looking like a galra might take some getting used to, but he was still Lance under it all.

“You can purr?” he asked, and Lance pulled away with a slow nod.

“Yeah. It’s, like, reflex I guess?” he shrugged, and brought the towel up to rub at the inside of his other ear. “It just kinda happens sometimes.”

“When people scratch behind your ears?” Hunk grinned, turning back to the food goo machine and dialing the pressure down to its usual level.

“Not all the time.” Lance said, crouching next to Hunk and peering at the display. “Like, it didn’t happen when Allura did it, or Coran.”

“Pidge?” Hunk asked, fiddling with a few of the flavour dials.

“Hasn’t tried yet, actually. They just grabbed one and yanked.” Lance pouted, rubbing at his right ear.

“Well, Pidge is weird like that.” Hunk shrugged. He considered asking about Keith, but having Lance go into a rant about his so-called rival would be a bit distracting.

“What’re you even doing?” Lance squinted, leaning in closer to the panel.

“Trying to make chicken nugget goo.” Hunk answered, elbowing Lance in the chest to make him back up a bit. “I did it by accident once, but forgot to make it a preset.”

“I volunteer for taste tester.” Lance said quickly, his stomach growling.

“Sure.” Hunk grinned. “Grab a plate and some sporks.”

Lance did, twirling one of the sporks between his fingers like a showoff, and Hunk fidgeted one of the dials up and down a bit until the number steadied where he wanted it. “So.” he said after a few seconds of silence. “This, uh, transformation. Did you get anything out of it?”

“Cool teeth.” Lance shrugged.

“Aside from the aesthetic stuff.” Hunk rolled his eyes. “Enhanced senses, reflexes, anything?”

Lance jumped up to sit on the counter, heels drumming against the side for a few seconds before he spoke. “My hearing’s definitely better. Night vision too. And I can keep up with Keith in the ring now, so I think my reflexes may have gotten better.”

“Neat.” Hunk grinned, standing and holding out a hand for the plate. Lance handed it over, and Hunk squirted a lump of pale orange-ish goo onto the ceramic. “No superpowers, though?”

Lance snorted. “Dude, Superman only had his powers because of Earth’s sun. For all we know, I’ll develop super strength once we get home.”

“Or laser vision.” Hunk took the spork Lance offered, and wiped the goo-covered handle on his pants. “That’d be awesome.”

“Yeah.” Lance sighed wistfully. “But like, I think if I was gonna develop superpowers I already would’ve, y’know?” he caught a blob of goo on his spork, and Hunk did the same. It tasted, well, weird. Lance made a face. “That’s not chicken nuggets.”

“Hey, this is trial and error.” Hunk huffed, giving Lance the plate and turning back to the machine. “And you volunteered.”

“I didn’t say it was nasty.” Lance retorted, probably rolling his eyes. “Just that it’s not what you were aiming for. Too sour.”

“We should ask Pidge to make this thing display in English when they get back.” Hunk sighed, tweaking what he hoped was the sourness value.

“Definitely.”


	11. Chapter 11

Shiro groaned, pulling his helmet off for the first time in well over a month and trying to smooth his hair down with one hand. The hangar was full, all five Lions sitting in their designated spots, and he relaxed a little bit at the sight. Everyone really had had made it here, they were all safe. Not that he’d distrusted Allura, but it was still nice to see for himself. The doors opened before he reached them, and Shiro staggered back a step as Pidge tackled him with more force than he’d expected.

“I’m so glad you’re back!” they said, hugging him tightly.

Shiro grinned, and ruffled their hair. “Same here. Where’s the rest of the team?”

Pidge pulled away, and straightened their glasses absently. “Allura’s readying the castle to leave this solar system, Hunk and Coran are helping with the technical bits of it, and Keith and Lance are sparring.”

“Sparring?” Shiro raised an eyebrow as they headed for the elevator that lead up to the rest of the castle.

“Yeah.” Pidge nodded. “Ever since Lance-” they paused, and shook their head as they opened the elevator doors with a tap of their bayard. “Since the both of them got back here, Keith’s been teaching Lance hand to hand.”

The doors opened on a robot Shiro didn’t recognize, and he felt himself smile. “Bopper?”

“Yep.” Pidge nodded proudly, patting the trash can-sized bot on its head. “Bops, this is Shiro. Say hi.”

The robot chirped, and Shiro chuckled as the elevator began to rise. “Hello, Bopper.” he reached out to pat the bot, but it wheeled back quickly and brandished a- tazer? It was crackling with electricity, whatever it was.

“Oh, shit.” Pidge groaned, facepalming. “Sorry, he’s programmed to react to galra tech. I’ll make your arm an exception.”

“Why not just have him react to galra?” Shiro asked, stepping back from the robot and tapping the button which would make them stop on the floor with the training room.

Pidge shrugged. “They’ve gotta have allies, right? And neither of those monsters they’ve sent after us were galran.”

Shiro nodded, and smiled a little. “Good thinking, Pidge.” the elevator started to slow, and he turned to face the doors. “I’ll get Lance and Keith and meet the rest of you on the control deck.”

Pidge was quiet for a minute and when he looked over his shoulder Shiro saw them deep in thought. He sighed, and walked out into the hallway. Pidge was probably already recoding the robot in their head, he’d just grab Keith and Lance and they’d all go up to the control deck for a team meeting.

The hallways were quiet, bathed in cool blue light, and Shiro opened the door to the training room with a touch of his hand. A deep growl made every hair on his body stand on end, and his right arm lit up with hot purple light. Lance was nowhere to be seen, safely out of the room, and Keith was trading blows with a galran soldier. Keith didn’t even have his bayard, but the galra was unarmed and unarmoured as well.

It swiped at Keith’s face with deadly sharp claws as Shiro sprinted across the room, and when it drew back for a finishing blow Shiro was there. He grabbed it by the wrist, yanked its arm back, and used his left arm and knee to bring it to the ground. It screamed in pain, but Shiro just tightened his grip on his wrist as it tried to pull away.

“Let go!” Keith yelled, and Shiro looked up from the purple alien under his knee to see the Red Paladin thankfully unharmed. “You’re hurting him!” Keith shoved at his chest with surprising strength, and Shiro was forced to stagged back or fall over. He took a few steps backwards, releasing the galra’s wrist, and Keith planted himself between them.

“Keith, move.” Shiro said firmly. Keith didn’t budge an inch, fists raised as if Shiro was the threat and not the enemy soldier on the ground behind him. “Get your bayard. I’ll deal with this.” Shiro took a step forward, but Keith remained planted over the galran soldier. It whimpered and curled up, clutching its burnt wrist to its chest and staring at Shiro with wide eyes. Good, let it be afraid.

“No.” Keith said, and Shiro took his eyes off the galra for a moment to meet Keith’s eyes.

“Keith, move. That’s an order.” Shiro glared.

“No.” Keith glared right back, shoulders squared and chin lifted defiantly. “Not if you’re just going to hurt him again.”

“Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t.” Shiro said, forcing himself to speak calmly. He had to get Keith to stop being stubborn before the soldier recovered, and that meant de-escalating.

“Because it’s _Lance_.” Keith said, his tone conveying the unsaid ‘you moron’ loud and clear.

“That _thing_ isn’t Lance.” Shiro snapped, pointing at the still-cowering galra with his prosthetic hand. It whimpered and scooted away, twisting to sit up with its knees near its chest.

“Of course it’s Lance.” Keith snapped right back. “Allura and Coran could see it, Hunk and Pidge too.”

“I could never work on a team with one of our enemies.” Shiro said, lowering his hand. The galra got to its feet shakily, and Shiro yanked Keith behind him by the jacket sleeve. If the Red Paladin wasn’t going to arm himself, Shiro would just have to stay between him and the threat. The galra trembled on its feet, burnt wrist held to its chest, shoulders hunched in. It was smaller than he’d expected, wearing dark jeans and a black tank top, ears flat against its skull and eyes wide with naked fear. If it hadn’t been a galra, Shiro would’ve thought he even saw tears glinting along its lower lashes.

“Do you really mean that?” it asked thickly, locking golden eyes with Shiro’s dark ones.

“Absolutely.” Shiro scowled, pushing Keith further behind him.

The galra sighed, its entire torso shaking, and the breath it drew after was quick and sharp. “Then I’ll turn in my bayard.” it said, injured hand curling into a tight fist. “You guys shouldn’t have too much trouble finding a new Blue Paladin, she’ll take just about anyone.” it chuckled humourlessly, and ducked its head. “I mean, look at me. Bottom of the class, useless in a fight, half fucking _galra_...” it trailed off into more empty laughter, and behind him Keith made a small, pained sound.

“ _Lance_.” he said, more emotion in that one word than Shiro had heard in his voice since they left Earth, but he made no move to get past Shiro’s dimming arm.

Could the galra in front of him really be the Blue Paladin? Shiro wanted to say no, he could never have been in synch enough with a galra to form Voltron, but now that he looked again things didn’t quite add up. The supposed soldier’s eyes were darker in the middle, not flat gold all the way across. Its- _his_ hair was brown, and his clothes didn’t look like anything Shiro could recall ever seeing a galra wear.

“I mean, we’re all replaceable.” he said, gesturing vaguely with his uninjured hand. “I’m basically worthle-”

“No.” Shiro said firmly, lowering his arms. “We’re not replaceable.” he stepped forward, and forced himself to focus on Lance’s features instead of the colour of those features. “ _You_ aren’t replaceable.”

“But, you said-” Lance was on the verge of tears, his whole body shaking with each breath.

“I know what I said.” Shiro laid his human hand gently on Lance’s shoulder. “But you’re not an enemy. You’re half-human, and that’s the half that matters.”

Lance gave a weak grin, sharp teeth glinting in his mouth, and Shiro’s stomach turned but he forced down the nausea to reach up and curl his right hand around the back of Lance’s left ear, which had fallen away from his skull and was now drooping down towards his shoulders. Lance stiffened, but then Shiro sank his prosthetic fingers into the thick fluff at the base and Lance stiffly leaned into the touch. A few tears slipped out as his eyes slid closed, and Shiro pulled the Blue Paladin in for a hug. Lance hugged him back tightly, almost as tight as Pidge had earlier, and a strangled almost-sob left the teen’s throat.

“Why does everyone go for the ears?” Lance mumbled into Shiro’s breastplate, relaxing as Shiro rubbed gentle circles into the little knot of muscles. His inhales were still deep, shuddering, gasping things, but when he exhaled it rumbled quietly. He was purring, Shiro realized after a minute. Lance was purring and leaning his head against Shiro’s hand like any old Earth cat begging for more ear scratches. Or maybe just like Lance, the teen thrived on attention and physical affection after all. If he could ignore the galran traits, it was actually kinda cute.

“Is that all it takes?” Keith spat from behind him, and Lance went from a relaxed slump against Shiro to standing tall in a single graceful motion. Shiro turned to look at Keith, since that was obviously what Lance was looking at, and his eyes widened a bit at the sight of Keith so visibly angry.

“What?” Lance’s face screwed up, and Shiro stepped sideways. He had to deescalate the situation between them, but that was tricky because unlike usual he wasn’t actually sure what they were fighting about.

“You may have forgiven him already, but I haven’t.” Keith scowled, turning on his heel to storm towards the door.

“Keith, I-” Lance took a step towards the door, injured hand lifting like he was going to call the Red Paladin back, but he fell silent before a third word passed his lips and the arm came back in towards his chest. The doors shut behind Keith, and Shiro sighed. It hadn’t escalated, but now one of them would have to go find Keith, and Lance needed patching up.

“Go.” he said after a moment, patting Lance on the shoulder. “Talk it out with Keith. I’ll meet you in Medical afterward to treat your wrist.”

Lance looked down at his burn like he’d forgotten it was there, then waved that hand carelessly. “This? I’ve had worse.”

Shiro frowned, and something about Lance’s answering smile felt off in a way Shiro couldn’t quite put his finger on. “I’ll see you in Medical, or I’ll come find you and drag you there.” he said, and Lance nodded with that not-quite-right smile before turning on his heel and heading out of the room.

Alone, Shiro slumped and brushed a hand back over his hair with a heavy sigh. This was going to be hard, really hard. No harder than what he’d already endured, though, and if the rest of the team really did accept Lance as he was then he couldn’t afford to be the one tearing them apart. He’d tell everyone that there had been a misunderstanding in the training room, and call the meeting in Medical once Lance’s burn was treated. If he handled this one step at a time, he’d be able to get through it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I cannot fucking describe it but when Keith says “Lance” his tone is something like [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YERlLm8ZonY). But like, more pained and even more gay. Also, Bopper is basically built like an R-series astromech droid from Star Wars.


	12. Chapter 12

Lance kept his ears perked forward, following the faint sound of footsteps through the halls. Keith had started out with a decent lead, but he wasn’t running so Lance was slowly catching up. The footsteps abruptly stopped, and Lance took the next few turns on a hunch. Just before rounding a third corner, however, he caught a sound which wasn’t made by the castle. Nothing expressive, just a quiet sigh. He backed up a few steps, and looked into the room he’d just passed. There was a deep, kinda narrow window well, the sill padded and made into a bench, and at second glance he noticed Keith’s foot sticking out just barely into his line of sight.

Lance exhaled slowly, and walked into the room. Keith would forgive Shiro on his own, but Lance wasn’t sure if they had time for that, so it fell to him to make sure the idiot saw sense. Keith didn’t look up when Lance stood next to him, just hugged his knees tighter to his chest and kept glaring out the window. Lance sat down at the other end of the window, rested his arms on his knees and his chin on his arms, and waited.

“If Shiro sent you here to get an apology out of me, you can tell him he’s not getting one.” he grumbled after a few minutes of stiff silence.

Lance blinked, shaking himself a little. That, well, he probably should’ve expected it but he hadn’t. “I’m not here for an apology.” he said quietly, matching Keith’s volume. “I just-” just what? He sighed, and rested his forehead on his folded arms. “Why?”

“Why what?” Keith said, and when he looked up Lance found his friend/rival scowling. “Why did I keep him from hurting you? Because we’re friends, because you’re a Paladin as much as the rest of us, because he was being stupid and-”

“It wasn’t stupid.” Lance frowned, fingers curling against his elbows. “If I’d been a galra soldier, he would’ve been saving your life.”

“But you’re not!” Keith threw his hands up in the air. “And even after I told him that, he was still going to-”

“Keith, it’s okay.” Lance interjected, sticking a leg out to press his heel against the side of Keith’s foot. “Shiro’s got every reason to not trust me right now.” he chuckled dryly. “I’m kinda surprised he doesn’t want me dead or gone, honestly.”

“He shouldn’t, though.” Keith spat, glaring briefly at Lance before turning his gaze back out the window. “And how can you forgive him so easily after-” he gestured at Lance’s arms, and Lance grimaced at the reminder that yeah, his wrist kinda really fucking hurt.

“He told me to meet him in Medical after I talked to you.” he said, keeping his voice low. “He has every right to hate me, but he still cares.”

“That’s not an apology.” Keith snapped, turning to glare at Lance.

“Why do you _care_?” Lance snapped back, pulling his leg in and rising to his knees. “It’s not like his reaction was different from anyone else’s. Pidge tazed me, Hunk _pressure washed_ me with food goo, and you-” he drew a quick breath, and a rough approximation of a laugh stuttered out of his throat. “You were going to fucking **kill** me.” his voice came out strangled, but he didn’t care. He’d been so successful at not thinking about it, at putting the looks of fear and hatred on his friends’ faces out of mind, but now it was hard to think of anything else.

“But none of us actually hurt you.” Keith frowned, folding his legs to the side so his knees nearly touched the window. “And Shiro’s supposed to be our leader. He needs to be able to see the difference between you and our enemies.”

“And now he does.” Lance said firmly, trying to put out of mind the way Shiro had all but snarled at him in the training room.

“He called you an _it_.” Keith grimaced, his tone absolutely disgusted.

Lance drew a deep breath, and his entire body shuddered with it. “And?” he asked, managing to keep his voice level. They all called galra Its, it was easier that way, not thinking of them as individuals but as a single force, no different from the robots that piloted their fighter drones.

“And you’re not an it!” Keith cried, leaning forward.

Lance sat back to put a little more space between them, and lifted a hand to scratch at his jaw. Keith’s hand snapped out and fastened around his forearm. “Claws, remember?”

Lance yanked his hand away, a pressure building in his chest which could’ve been a growl or a sob. “Why do you _care_?” he snapped, blinking hard to keep his eyes more or less dry.

“Why don’t _you_ care?!” Keith yelled back, rising to his knees and grabbing Lance by the shoulders.

“I care.” Lace retorted, pushing at Keith’s chest to make some space between them. Keith remained stubbornly unmoved.

“Then act like it!” Keith shook him roughly. “Don’t let Shiro off so easy for hurting you, don’t keep saying you’re worthless and replaceable because you’re _not_.” his hands tightened on Lance’s shoulders, and the pressure in Lance’s chest expanded to fill his throat as well. “We need you, dammit!”

Lance gasped, forcing air down his throat, and his exhale came out a juddery sob. Keith’s expression changed instantly, going from familiar stubborn fury to shock and then to some sort of pity. It hurt for reasons Lance couldn’t name, like an arrow piercing far too close to his heart, and he felt hot tears welling out of his eyes.

“Shit.” Keith let go of his shoulders, falling down to sit on his heels. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” Lance gasped, forcing a smile. “Everything’s-” a sob stuck in his throat, and he curled forward around his knees. “Everything.” he sobbed. “Everything’s fucked up.”

“Lance.” Keith said, his voice going all soft and pained, and Lance struggled to breathe through the deep, shaking sobs which racked his body. He was a fucking alien and every one of his teammates had tried to kill him for it. Hell, Shiro probably still would try to kill him for it if he acted suspicious. And despite all that, Keith still thought that he _mattered_ , that the team could function with him in it, that Shiro hadn’t been lying to make him feel better when he said it was his human half that mattered.

“Lance, hey. Hey.” Keith grabbed his wrist, and he hissed as the burn erupted in pain. Keith let go pretty quick, and grabbed his hand instead. “I’m here. It’s okay.”

Despite himself, Lance laughed. Of course, the cherry on top of his fucked up life. Somehow, he’d developed a crush on _Keith_ of all people. Keith frowned, then shuffled closer on his knees and pulled Lance into a tight hug.

“It’s okay.” he murmured, carding a hand through Lance’s hair. “It’s okay to cry.”

Lance hesitated for a long second, but then wrapped his arms around Keith’s torso and clung to him. Keith scratched behind his ears, and though he couldn’t purr and cry at the same time Lance did go more or less limp. He’d gotten his sobbing mostly under control when Keith trailed a finger down the back of his ear and under his jaw, gently lifting his chin. He probably looked like a mess, his eyes were definitely puffy and his nose had run so his face was undoubtedly streaked with both tears and snot.

Keith leaned in, and Lance drew a quick, shallow breath as he realized what was happening. But it couldn’t really be happening, he’d never done anything to deserve it. In fact, with the way his life was going right now, it was actively surreal. Keith paused, so close that the warmth of his skin was a tangible thing in the space between them and his dark eyes were all Lance could see. Fuck it, either this went badly and he could get over it or it didn’t backfire in his face and he’d actually have a chance to act on a crush for once.

The kiss itself was a slow, shallow thing. Keith’s lips were dry and a bit chapped, and it took a long second of motionless, closed-mouth contact before Lance realized Keith had no clue how to kiss. He opened his mouth slightly, dragging his tongue over Keith’s lower lip, and savoured the happy little sound Keith made in response. Keith shifted, pulling Lance closer even as they parted to breathe.

Lance managed a full breath in and back out without sobbing, and smiled weakly. Keith’s forehead rested against his, and Lance’s next breath hitched a little but the painful pressure in his chest and throat was gone. Most of the tension in his body was gone, actually, leaving him feeling weirdly... floppy. “Thanks.” he murmured, and Keith pressed a gentle kiss to the edge of his mouth with a small smile.

“It was nothing.”

Lance grinned, and lifted a hand to brush the backs of his claws over Keith’s cheek. “You’re doing that thing again.”

“What?” Keith frowned, and dammit that was unfairly cute.

“Smiling so you don’t look like an ass.”

Keith rolled his eyes, but smiled wider as he pushed Lance away with a hand in the middle of his chest. “Shut up.”

“Make me.” Lance grinned back, the pressure in his chest fading in the face of something bright and weightless.

“After we get you to Medical.” Keith said, his voice somewhere between order and promise.

“Even though Shiro’s there?” Lance asked, aiming his tone towards teasing. Keith grimaced.

“I’ll wait outside.”

“Aww, but babe.” Lance grinned, lacing his fingers with Keith’s carefully so as not to scratch him. “I need you for emotional support.”

Keith snorted, and flicked Lance in the middle of his forehead. “I’ll wait outside.” he repeated.

“Fine, be an emo.” Lance huffed, standing up. His legs felt weird, a bit like they were going to give out under him but not in a numb way. They didn’t, though, so he walked towards the door. Keith got up and followed quickly for a few seconds, falling in step when he caught up.

\---

Keith frowned, and stepped through the door into the room they’d dubbed simply Medical. He’d meant to wait outside in the hall, because picking another fight with Shiro was only going to end in pain and probably one of them in a cryo-pod, but when Lance walked in he’d caught a glimpse of Pidge. Lance had been whining about his wrist the whole way over, which was a surefire way to know that the Blue Paladin was more or less fine, but as far as he knew Pidge had no reason to be here.

“Okay, now just keep that on your wrist until it starts to dry out.” Shiro said, a medium sized dome-topped robot rolling figure-8s around him and Lance and making distressed beeping noises. The robot Pidge befriended. Bop-top or something? It wasn’t trying to zap Lance anymore so he guessed that was an improvement.

“Seriously, what happened?” Pidge asked, seated on the counter. They were glancing between Lance and their laptop, which was balanced on their knees.

“More like what happened to Bopper.” Lance said, very clearly deflecting. “I thought you fixed his code after he fucking tazed me.”

“He’s worried.” Pidge grinned, unable to pass up an opportunity to talk about robots. “Or as close as his coding lets him get.”

“Speaking of code.” Lance said as Shiro put some things away in the cupboards. “Or, well, tangentially related to Bopper I guess. I wanna see that video.”

“What video?” Shiro asked, looking over his shoulder at Lance.

“The one Pidge claimed to take of a galra base blowing up.” Keith answered, since Lance looked incredulous and Pidge just looked bewildered.

“Oh, _that_ one.” Pidge grinned. “Gimme a minute to pull it up, Green’s terrible at transferring files where they should go. I think she’s trying to apply some sort of altean coding logic and it just doesn’t mesh.”

Shiro nodded tersely, an acknowledgement of Keith’s presence. Keith nodded back, then went over to lean against the counter next to Pidge. Lance joined him a moment later, a strip of wet fabric wrapped several times around his wrist, and Shiro leaned in on Pidge’s other side.

“So, what’s this about blowing up a base?” he asked as Pidge scrolled through a mess of video files labelled with the ‘character does not exist’ boxes.

“Pidge claims they blew up a base solo.” Lance said before Pidge could answer. “I don’t believe it, myself. I mean, Me an’ Keith taking out some battleships like a couple of badasses? We’ve got, like, teamwork and shit. That’s doable. But you don’t just-”

Pidge double-clicked on a file, and Lance shut up as a video player popped open. Keith heard the Green Paladin’s voice counting down quietly as figures streamed out of a building at the base of the hill on-screen. “Four, three two, one...” there was a brief pause, and then Lance physically jumped and Keith startled as a massive blast of sound came from the laptop’s tiny speakers. The building had definitely just blown up, pretty spectacularly too, and the off-camera Pidge was whooping about success when the video ended.

“You were saying?” Pidge grinned, opening a window which had lines of green code scrolling slowly up a black background.

“For the record, I believed you.” Keith said, ducking out of Pidge’s personal space as Lance gaped.

“Impressive.” Shiro nodded.

“There’s also the small matter of I may have started a robot uprising there.” Pidge grinned sheepishly, and Shiro’s expression of approval fell flat.

“What.”


	13. Epilogue

The shuttle shook as air started to really drag along the hull and wings, and Keith clutched at the armrests of his seat. “Lance, slow down!”

“Oh, do _you_ want to be the one explaining to NASA what a short-range alien spacecraft is doing entering Earth’s atmosphere?” Lance huffed, glaring at Keith through his visor. “Because I sure as hell don’t.”

“At least-” the shuttle rocked violently, and Keith was tremendously grateful of his armour because being shaken about like this in normal clothing would’ve hurt like hell.

“Alright, there’s Cuba.” Lance grinned, finally slowing down and punching the cloaking button. Now they had fifteen minutes of complete undetectability to find Veradera and a place to land where they wouldn’t attract too much attention. It only took ten before Lance was cruising low over a town, the engines near-silent, maneuvering with the kind of surety only born of intimate familiarity.

“That’s my old school.” Lance said, pointing at a big blocky building with a flat gravel rooftop. “Looks like they’ve put more bike racks in.”

“Can you see your house yet?” Keith asked, leaning forward in his seat to watch the school building pass out of sight. There was a huge grass field next to it, where some kids were playing shirts and skins soccer.

“Not yet.” Lance frowned slightly. “What if they moved? Mamá always wanted to live closer to a big city, and Salome’s probably away at college so what if-”

Keith reached over and put a hand over Lance’s where it was tightening on the steering controls. “If they’ve moved, I say I’m a friend from school and ask for their new address.”

“What if...” Lance hesitated, and Keith knew exactly what his boyfriend was about to say but he waited anyways. “What if they’re scared of me?”

Keith sighed and laced his fingers with Lance’s as best he could around the joystick. “They won’t be. You’re still you.”

“Not the one they remember, though.” Lance said quietly, taking them lower over fenced-in backyards.

Keith tightened his grip, but said nothing. None of them were the same person they’d been when they left Earth four years ago, or five in Shiro’s case. Lance and Pidge, in particular, had hit impressive growth spurts. God, Lance had been insufferable for weeks after he realized he was taller than Shiro, until Pidge got fed up and started tazing him every time he made a height related wisecrack. But more than growth spurts or sheer brute strength, they’d changed as people. He didn’t think that he’d be able to go back to living in that desert shack if he was given the option, and he would’ve bet his bayard the others felt the same.

The shuttle stilled, then dropped the last few feet with a bone-jarring **thud**. Keith grunted as he was flung against the ceiling, and once again cursed the lack of seatbelts in every single altean spaceship. Seatbelts in the castle, where they only ever accelerated in two directions? Sure! Seatbelts in smaller space vehicles that could do fucking barrel rolls? Naah. It was stupid and he hated it.

“Bet you couldn’ta done that.” Lance grinned, smug as hell for no reason at all.

“There are these things called landing thrusters.” Keith groaned, pushing himself up into a sitting position. “And I would’ve flown, but you’re the one who knew where we were headed.”

“Oh quit your whining.” Lance was fucking beaming as he stooped to offer Keith a hand up. “You think I was gonna burn up Mami’s yard? First day back or no, she would’ve gutted me.”

Keith accepted the offered hand, and let Lance pull him to his feet. “You ready for this?” he asked quietly, meeting Lance’s golden eyes.

“Ready as I’ll ever be.” Lance’s hand tightened on his, and Keith turned to push the button that would open the back of the shuttle. A thought sprang to mind, and he chuckled as the hatch lowered.

“Cargo pilot.” he muttered, elbowing Lance and gesturing at the space meant to hold stacks of boxes.

Lance snorted, and gave Keith’s hand a gentle squeeze before releasing it. The door to the house opened, and Keith almost did a double take. The girl standing there bore a startling resemblance to Lance, before his transformation. Similar skin tone, same long and lanky build, the same sort of shape to the eyes. But her irises were brown where he was pretty sure Lance’s had been blue, and the few locks of her dark hair hair not pulled back in a braid had a distinct wave which Lance’s lacked. It was hard to believe they were adopted when they looked so similar.

“¡Maaamiiiii,” she called into the house, not taking her eyes off of them. “Hay unos tipos raros en el patio trasero!”

“That’s Salome.” Lance said quietly, a note of undisguised awe in his voice. “Xir hair’s gotten even longer.”

“¿Cómo que hay alguien en el pa-?” a middle-aged woman appeared in the doorway, lacking Lance and Salome’s height and slightly darker in skin tone. Her eyes widened at the sight of them, standing in the mouth of their spaceship, and Lance made a quiet noise which was almost a mewl.

“Mami.” he breathed, and Keith realized that his stupid boyfriend wasn’t going to _do_ anything even with his mother and not-sister right in front of him. Keith sighed, and lifted his hands to pull his helmet off. His visor had tinted at the first hint of sunlight, and he winced a little at the brightness.

“Mrs. McClain.” he grinned, tucking his helmet under his arm. “It’s nice to see you in person.”

“Corre, trae a tus hermanas. Dile a Vivian que agarre su espada.” Mrs. McClain said to Salome before squaring her shoulders and stepping out of the house, shutting the door behind herself. “Who are you?” she asked, a steel in her tone that Keith had heard many times before when Lance was exceptionally pissed.

“My name is Keith Kogane.” he said with a carefully even tone, not moving from his spot on the ramp. This woman had raised _Lance_. There was no telling what she might do if she thought he was a threat. “I’m a friend of your son’s.”

She frowned harder, and Keith got the distinct impression that if she had a weapon she would be pointing it at him. “My son is four years dead, pendejo. Now tell me why you are here, and be quick before my youngest arrives with her sword.”

“You let Viv get a _sword_?” Lance asked, sounding incredulous and more than a little indignant. “You barely let me have a pocket knife!”

“Hermano?” a curvy girl in the doorway asked, holding a wooden hammer loosely in one hand.

“Hi, Amalia.” Lance lifted a hand in a little wave and stepped forward onto the grass. “Sorry I missed, well, a whole lot of competitions.” he sounded like he was smiling awkwardly, ears down and back.

“¿Mi niño?” his mom said slowly, fists uncurling and eyes widening as anger and suspicion gave way to hope.

“Si, Mami.” Lance nodded once, and Keith could practically see that stupid cute smile which the polarized visor hid so well. “Volví a casa.”

“¡Después de cuatro años!” she cried, rushing forward and pulling Lance down into a hug.

“Mami!” he yelped, but didn’t try to straighten up. Instead he bent his knees and hugged her tight, letting her tuck his head against her shoulder.

“Mi niño.” she half sobbed, pressing her cheek to the top of Lance’s helmet. “Mi hijo ha vuelto a casa.”

“Maamiii.” Lance whined, lifting his head but making no other move to pull away. “Not in front of my- friend!” he hesitated, and Keith wasn’t sure if he should be offended or grateful. Lance’s sisters and his not-sister were spilling out of the house, one of them holding an honest to god metal sword with a scabbard on her belt, and he kinda didn’t want to be the center of their attention like Lance currently was. Well, most of them were focused on Lance, mobbing him in a group hug, but the one with a sword, Vivian, was standing in front of the door and staring right at him. She lifted her sword, held it horizontally in front of her neck, and slowly drew it sideways before spinning it dexterously and sheathing it in one fluid movement. Keith made a mental note not to fuck with Lance’s youngest sister under any circumstance. Any high school student with that kind of skill was not a person to mess with.

“Creciste tanto.” Lance’s mami said softly, releasing Lance and cupping his cheeks. “Quítate este casco, déjame verle la cara a mi hijo.”

Lance went tense, and Keith cleared his throat loudly. “Hi.” he said, drawing the attention of all Lance’s siblings. “I, uh, introduced myself to your mom but not you guys yet.” he offered a smile, though it felt brittle on his face. “My name’s Keith. Lance and I are- teammates.” he half stumbled over the last word, something they’d stopped using to describe themselves years ago, and the youngest of Lance’s sisters gripped her sword with as much determination as any alien soldier Keith had ever met.

“Are you the one who took him away?” Vivian asked harshly. Keith had to consciously keep his free hand clear of his bayard, lest it energize at his touch.

“Viv!” Lance scolded, pulling free of his mother’s embrace and turning to undoubtedly glare at his younger sister. “¡No es tuyo como para que lo estés molestando, así que ya párale!”

“¿Oh, entonces quién sí tiene permiso para molestarlo? ¿Tú?” she snapped, bristling not unlike Lance did when he was angry. The resemblance really was uncanny. How the hell was Lance not actually blood related to any of these people?

“Somos compañeros, así que sí.” Lance said forcefully, the last word or two coming out at a near snarl. He pulled back immediately after, and Keith guessed he’d been baring his teeth behind the visor.

“You are a friend of my son’s?” Lance’s mom asked, one hand resting on Lance’s elbow like she was afraid he might disappear. Keith nodded, and Mrs. McClain’s face split with a smile. “Then come in, come in, both of you.” she pulled Lance down again and pressed a kiss just above the top of his visor. “Dejame verte la cara.” she murmured, and Keith stepped forward to put a hand on Lance’s other elbow.

“Actually, could we talk for a minute?” he gave his best persuasion smile, which Lance still mocked on a regular basis but seemed to work well enough now. Mrs. McClain looked between them, then nodded slowly.

“I will get limonada for you both.” she grinned. “Salomé, niñas, ayúdenme a sacar las botanas.”

Mrs. McClain turned and bustled into the house, and the young woman with the wooden hammer, Amalia if he was guessing right, stepped forward quickly to give Lance a hug tight enough to make his armour creak. “Siempre supe que volverías.” she whispered, and Keith looked away as Lance hugged her back.

“Dije Salomé _y_ niñas! ” Lance’s mami yelled from inside, and Amalia pulled away with a grin.

“Go, tell Mami I’ll be right in.” Lance said, giving her a little shove on the shoulder. Vivian glared at Keith for a moment before following her older sister into the building, and once they were alone Keith tugged Lance’s arm so his boyfriend was facing him.

“Your visor won’t stay tinted inside.” he said softly, hand trailing down Lance’s forearm until Lance reached up to lace their fingers together.

“I know, I just-”

“They’re your family, Lance.” Keith gave his boyfriend’s hand a gentle squeeze. “If they’re anything like you, they won’t give a shit what you look like.”

“Excuse you.” Lance huffed. “I care very much what I look like.”

Keith rolled his eyes. “I know, you spend an ungodly amount of time in the bathroom every morning. But that’s not what I meant and you know it.”

Lance sighed, and slumped forward enough to press his the front of his helmet against Keith’s forehead. “I know, but I’m still... I'm scared.” he admitted in a small voice. “Viv’s got a sword, Amalia’s got the meat tenderizer...”

He trailed off, but Keith got the point. “Don’t worry.” he smiled, catching Lance’s other hand in his own. “No matter what happens in there, I’ve got your back.”

“Thanks.” Lance was almost definitely grinning, and Keith pressed a quick kiss to the side of his helmet.

“Now let’s get inside. I think I heard your mom mention lemonade?”

“Oh, yeah.” Lance straightened up, beaming grin perfectly audible. “Mami makes the _best_ lemonade.” he started towards the house, and Keith smiled as he followed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaand, that's a wrap! It's been a pleasure writing this story, and reading all your comments.
> 
> Edit: many thanks to [roshabot](http://roshabot.tumblr.com/) on tumblr for helping me patch up the McClains' Spanish.


End file.
